Local Tasting Tours: Night Out on Quinpool

Local Tasting Tours Quinpool Road restaurants

While in New York a few months back, one of our top to-do’s was a food tour. For us, truly experiencing a place involves some lips-on action with locally produced goods, and hearing about the history that has made a place’s food culture what it is.

But, oddly enough, we had never thought to take a food tour of our own neighbourhood. Quinpool Road is a mere 15 minute walk from our front door. It’s home to our favourite sushi place, and the lovely cheesecakery that made our wedding cakes. We go there for coffee meetings, tapas, and ’emergency CB potato chips’, and yet, we know so little about it’s history.


Enter Emily Forrest, the passionate entrepreneur behind Local Tasting Tours. Before meeting Emily, I had heard rumours that she once walked around the coast of Nova Scotia. It turns out that, not only did she walk the full coastline in three months, she has also walked the coast of Prince Edward Island in five weeks and plans to walk New Brunswick next.

Emily took her love of food and paired it with her love of walking and Local Tasting Tours was born. For the past three years, she’s been taking locals and visitors on epic food adventures of Halifax by foot. 

Local Tasting Tours started at the inaugural #OpenCity in 2012 with a food tour of the south end. She soon added tours of other popular food areas of the city – Quinpool, Downtown Halifax, and most recently the North End, Halifax’s quickly up-and-coming food scene.  

Our first stop at Mezza also included a small glass of red wine.

Our first stop at Mezza also included a small glass of red wine.



We met Emily at the Oxford Theatre, Halifax’s last free-standing theatre that is a go-to for indie and international films, festivals and midnight screenings. Our host gave us a quick history lesson while we snacked on shrimp chips from Quinpool’s Asian Grocery.

Unlike the afternoon tours, which consist of more stops that are quick and feature smaller plates, the Quinpool tour has five sit-down stops. Each stop is a meal unto itself. You can see just how much (and how varied) the food from our tour was from the photos…

Local Tasting Tours Quinpool

A plate of assorted tapas from Mezza.

Local Tasting Tours

Hot and Sour Soup and egg rolls at Ivory Thai.

Local Tasting Tours

Chicken souvlaki and Greek salad at The Blue Olive

Local Tasting Tours Quinpool

More wine at Bramoso Pizzaria

Local Tasting Tours Quinpool

Assorted pizzas at Bramoso Pizzaria.

We finished the night at Sweet Hereafter. Our whole table was pleasantly stuffed with great food and struggling (but still eager) to fit in the two types of cheesecake we were presented with.

Local Tasting Tours Quinpool Road restaurants

The whole tour took about two hours, with 20 minute stops at each of the five locations, and time for walking, talking, and history in-between. In addition to learning more about Quinpool’s history, we loved hearing the history of each restaurant, and learning about the personalities and passions “behind the meal”.

Local Tasting Tours have daily tours from mid May until the end of October. Not every tour is offered on every day and you need to book by 3 pm the day of your tour. See the full tour schedule online: http://localtastingtours.com/all-tours/. They also organize private tours for special events like Bachelorettes, birthdays, and corporate retreats.

Price: $30 – $60

Website: http://localtastingtours.com

Note: As you can probably tell from our bio, title, and blog content, we are fierce supporters of the maritime provinces.  We love our little corner of the world dearly, and we want to show you as many amazing things to see and do here as we can. Local Tasting Tours let us tag along for free, a huge help in enabling us to continue providing posts on amazing experiences close to home. The opinions in this post are our own.

Subscribe to me on YouTube
Follow our adventures live:
@GillianWesleyNS
@DrewMooreNS
Facebook

About the author

The Local Traveler

Two travellers' tales of finding adventure on the East Coast. This blog is dedicated to the best parts of travel, and to discovering, celebrating and promoting things to do in our corner of the world, and sometimes beyond. We especially love craft beer, day trips, romantic escapes, local food & hidden gems. Join our community on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and share tips and photos of your favourite East Coast adventures.

Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube