Savoring Rhode Island

I am a trained chef and I have worked in Providence restaurants before. This tour was a great opportunity for me to be exposed to some of the culture and food traditions of the legendary Federal Hill area in Providence. We met in a lovely plaza and the group was a good size for visiting the small shops. The tour started with a visit to a poultry butcher, I will never forget that experience. Our tour director had a lot of good insight, the store owners seemed to know her well. We were allowed into the back area of a bakery where the bakers were making beautiful cakes. The huge ovens they used were amazing. We also got to sample some Italian charcuterie in a quaint Italian market that had all sorts of unique Italian products. The tour ended in a specialty wine store, one of the bottles we discovered is still our favorite Prosecco. This was a great culinary experience and would be a good experience for someone out of state or even a native Rhode Islander like me.

We really enjoyed this tour of Federal Hill. It was great to get the behind the scenes experience, to sample the food and to learn more about how the food comes together. I would definitely recommend this to RI natives and visitors to the area!

Best tour ever! Cindy does an amazing job explaining everything, while keeping it incredibly fun. I loved tasting the olive oil and seeing the cakes being decorated at Scialo brothers.
Definitely check this tour us!

First and foremost, this was an enjoyable experience.
Cindy is a great presenter, and her rapport with the business owners and personnel were a big benefit.
I would class this as a tour for people who don’t know much about Federal Hill, or about food, however.
The businesses that are visited are those toward which one would naturally gravitate, having visited the area once or twice. They are well chosen, but they stand out on their own. This was my third time visiting Federal Hill, and we had found our way to all of the shops on the tour the first time we visited.
And while the tour was informative in terms of the businesses visited (there was some good background information, and usually some good banter with an owner or long time employee), and some basic history, there was not the in depth information about food that I had anticipated.
The highlight of the tour was, without a doubt, a trip behind the scenes at Scialo Brothers Bakery — this is the one piece that you simply would not be able to do on your own, and it was a great experience.
My one complaint with the tour is that, being a food tour… I expected a lot more food!
I had expected that tasting olive oils and balsamic vinegar would mean some comparative tasting, and explanations of the differences between various qualities of product.
I also had higher hopes when tasting wine was next on the list… a sip of Prosecco just didn’t satisfy after the build up of excitement throughout the last half of the tour.

Scheduled a tour for February 15^th, and so happy I did! Cindy was amazing, gave tips on cooking and how to shop for authentic food. Cindy took us to great places on federal hill where we got VIP service and got to try samples of some tasty dishes and great wine.
If you get a chance to go on this tour, please do it. You’ll learn so much about food, wine, and historic Federal Hill.

We recently moved to Federal Hill and wanted to get to know our neighborhood better. I had no idea about the gems and treasures that were just steps from our home, and probably wouldn’t have discovered them on my own. Cindy is the queen of Federal Hill. She educated us about olive oils, balsamic vinegars, imported pastas, and salumi that are sold in shops in the area. We also visited a wine shop and bakery, where the owners took the time to talk to us for a lengthy period about what they do. You get to sample some really tasty food. Not enough for a meal, but it’s more than I was expecting.
What I liked best about the tour was that it was more than just finding food products that are good. Kind of like what going to a farmers market is like, Cindy helped us to see the relationship between the products and the store owners and when you hear about how much they care about the quality and purity of their products, you’re sold.
This was a wonderful, wonderful tour. Thanks, Cindy!