Slow Travel Tours
NileGuide Expert Says:
High quality food tour with wine pairings and olive oil tasting.Address:
Santiago,
Phone:
56 2 4177039NileGuide Expert tip:
A great, low-stress way to see the main market in Santiago and get to know some local specialties.Description:
Francisco Klimscha, an accomplished chef, wants to teach people about Chilean food, and has found no better way to to it than to design individual tours for people that involve a trip to the Vega (main market in Santiago), a negotiated menu, and then a trip to a country house with a spacious kitchen where passengers learn about Chilean ingredients and preparations from pisco sour to ceviche, cooked fish to dessert, with an olive oil tasting in between.The tours start in your hotel, where Francisco and a driver pick you up in a private vehicle, and starts asking questions about what types of food you prefer to eat, or would be interested in tasting. You park the car, and carrying wicker baskets and cloth shopping bags, you head into the Vega to meet with Francisco's favorite vendors for fish, olives and other favorites.
Francisco's strength is his knowledge of cooking, coupled with a desire to explain things to guests. The Vega is a huge cultural experience in itself, with huge veggie-laden carts being pulled by, cats lingering around, and the constant call of the stall owners to get you to come by their wares. Everyone knows Francisco, and people are happy to answer your questions (which he will translate, if you don't speak Spanish), before heading back to the country house to either sit on the veranda, splash around the pool, or help to prepare the meal you'll be eating in just a little while.
On a recent tour we had his special recipe pisco sour with a touch of hot pepper, a ceviche with some seaweed in it, a pilaf made of barley and fish medallions, served with sauteed vegetables. Dessert was the Vega's freshest, with cherries and melon for dessert.
Slow Tours can accommodate meat eaters, fish eaters, vegetarians, vegans, raw foodists, and if Francisco doesn't speak your language (though he speaks English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian), he can find a translator to accompany your trip.
Slow Travel also offers wine and nature tours as well as multi-day tours to other parts of the country and region.
