Our Story

We got our start in 2009, reporting from a borderless urban zone we like to think of as the “Culinary Backstreets” because we believed that there were countless stories of a city’s foodways that needed to be told. We wanted to focus on a more traditional side of urban culinary life – the workings of simple family-run restaurants, the masters passing their craft on to an apprentice, the banter of regulars gathered around an open table, the rhythm of a life committed to meatballs and nothing else. We were enthralled by all of the tiny epics we encountered while eating our way through the city and set out to share as many of them as we could. From the start, we vowed to go slow and collect these stories one-by-one, giving equal measure to the culinary side as the human element of the story. This way, we expected a deeper understanding of the city and its daily life to emerge with every bite. For us, it’s never just about the best meatball in town; it’s always about all of the meatballs.

We tell the stories of our subjects – unsung heroes who are sometimes forgotten or taken for granted at home – through culinary walking tours and multiday trips, restaurant profiles and other features published on our site, books, and downloadable guides. When we see the need, Culinary Backstreets also acts as a fundraiser for causes connected to protecting and promoting traditional culinary culture.

By publishing the stories of our local heroes, visiting them on culinary tours and trips, or directly fundraising for them when they are in need, we attempt to honor their work and their essential role in maintaining the fabric of the city. Our purpose is twofold. Yes, we want to get travelers to some good places to eat. But we also want to make sure that some of these spots and the artisans making food there find a new audience and get the recognition and support they deserve. They are holding back the tide of globalized sameness, which is not easy work – even if it’s done unknowingly. But we believe that every meal counts and, with the help of our audience, they will add up. We are committed to their perseverance and hope that our modest efforts encourage them to keep at it. Our work is also guided by a belief in: Honest Tourism: The places where we eat and craftsmen that we feature on our culinary tours are all selected with this purpose in mind. We’d never accept a free lunch or consider a discount for our tour groups, because that would contradict our central goal, to support them. Nor do our guides receive any commissions from shopkeepers. Honest Journalism: The same principal is applied to the publishing of stories. There are no sponsored posts or even advertising on CB. The writers and photographers are paid fairly for their work on stories that we all believe in.

To better guide our work, we’ve also developed a set of brand values that define who we are and how we operate. They are:

A Human Connection Over Every Plate
Food is our bridge, promoting connection and a deeper understanding of cultures, heritage and history.

Local Experts, Deeply Rooted
Our local experts proudly open a door into their communities, offering access grounded in respect and genuine insight.

Amplifying Voices, Highlighting Untold Stories
Through carefully crafted immersive experiences, we take travelers into the heart and soul of local culture, introducing them to the unsung heroes of the kitchen.

Beyond the Usual, Inspiring Exploration
We feed curiosity for exploring local culinary culture and savoring the unexpected, moving beyond cliché and engaging directly with those who uphold generations of tradition.

Respectful Engagement, Unforgettable Access
We provide genuine “insider” access to the people and places travelers wouldn't normally reach on their own through immersive, respectful and worry-free experiences.

Supporting Communities, Preserving Traditions
We promote travel that sustains traditions and empowers communities through mindful exploration and equitable economic support.

Passionate People, Collaborative Culture
We gather exceptional people working collaboratively to create respectful experiences through outstanding storytelling.

The cities we are drawn to all have a culinary tradition of untold richness as well as a certain tension, be it political instability, the tug between East and West, the clash between modern and ancient identities, migration, rapid gentrification, bankruptcy, or a post-colonial hangover. Our decision to get started in a city is always the result of a trip filled with many meals where we are given in intimate view of that tension, right there on the table. By getting lost in this warren of independent food purveyors struggling to preserve or adapt tradition in fast-paced urban life, we start to discover the deep complexity and true flavor of the city. At present, you’ll find us working in more than 20 cities around the world, from Athens to Tokyo.

As travel to most of the cities where we work has resumed, Culinary Backstreets is working with a new set of safety guidelines designed for the physical well-being of our guests, guides and members of the local community that we encounter. These guidelines have been developed in line with the best practices published by governments and health officials in the countries where CB works with regard to restaurant and tour and trip operation. With these procedures in place, our guests — led by our team of professional guides, who are being trained accordingly — can explore with peace of mind. The new procedures we are instituting include:

• Disinfection: Our guides carry hand sanitizer and provide it to guests frequently while also encouraging them to wash hands whenever a sink is available. Our guides also carry disinfecting wipes to clean surfaces during the tour or trip.
• Maintaining social distancing requirements: Our guides maintain social distancing during tours and trips, according to regulations issued by local health authorities.
• Wearing masks: Our guides and guests wear masks wherever required by local regulations. We request that guests come to the tour with their own mask, although our guides will provide masks to those who do not have one.
• Visiting restaurants safely: Our tours and trips only visit restaurants and shops that are adhering to official safety standards and regulations and, where applicable, have been certified as such. We also avoid visiting restaurants during peak times so that they are less crowded and in order to not displace hungry locals. In restaurants and shops, our guides make sure that guests adhere to the establishments’ social distancing rules and ascertain whether the rules are being followed by other diners.
• Tasting food safely: Our guides make sure that food is sampled and distributed safely and according to local health regulations.
• Vaccinated guides: Most Culinary Backstreets guides have been vaccinated, and the few remaining are testing themselves regularly while they wait for the jab.

Culinary Backstreets’ mission has always been to preserve, protect and celebrate local culinary traditions and the unsung heroes of the kitchen. Now, more than ever, we remain focused on this goal. These days, we are paying close attention to the physical, economic and psychological well-being of the local communities and the people who keep them fed. We view this as an opportunity for cities to develop a tourism model that makes sense for them and that avoids the mistakes of the past, and for companies like Culinary Backstreets to be part of that process by renewing our commitment to a more sustainable way of traveling and working. By joining our tours and trips, you are contributing to this effort, which includes:

• Going local: Our food tours and culinary trips continue to feature independent, family-run businesses and spotlight local products and small producers.
• Respecting local needs: Since new regulations require restaurants to limit their seating, we will make sure that our tours and trips don’t displace local patrons.
• Honoring tradition: We continue to honor the traditions of the communities we work with by promoting their cultural and culinary heritage.
• Preserving community memory: By telling the stories of the unsung culinary heroes of these communities, we continue to help preserve community memory and keep the unique spirit of neighborhoods and their local businesses alive.
• Expressing appreciation: Human contact with the local community is one of the joys of our tours and trips and the reason many of us travel. Despite the requirements of social distancing, we continue to safely express our appreciation of all the culinary masters we meet along the way.
• Supporting independent businesses: Small, independent businesses are what make our cities and their culinary landscape so spectacular. These businesses — from neighborhood bodega in Barcelona to grill joints in Tokyo — are highly vulnerable these days and it is particularly challenging for them to adapt to the new conditions. Our support, now more than ever, is particularly important.
• Reducing ground transportation: Conscious of the carbon footprint of our tours and trips, we are redoubling our effort to keep our tours and trips, as much as possible, on foot.
• Reducing single-use plastic: We are working to reduce single-use plastics on all of our tours and trips, most significantly water bottles. We encourage guests to bring their own water bottle which we can refill throughout the day. We’re also persuading restaurants to offer filtered water as an alternative to plastic bottles.

Culinary Backstreets is offering maximum flexibility for our guests, as we realize that travel this summer and fall might involve unexpected cancellations or postponements. So that our guests can book with confidence, we are putting in place the following cancelation policies:

• Culinary Tours: 100% refund if cancelled up to 7 days prior to the tour date.
• Multi-Day Trips: 100% refund if cancelled up to 90 days prior to the trip date.
• In addition to the policies above, late cancellations will be given a 100% credit for future Culinary Backstreets activities.

CB’s work was started in 2009 by Ansel Mullins and Yigal Schleifer as a humble food blog called Istanbul Eats. The following year we published a book of our reviews, now in its tenth edition. That year we also launched our first culinary walk in Istanbul, a route we are still using today. In 2012, we realized that what we built in Istanbul was needed in other cities we knew and loved. We started CB that year with Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City and Shanghai as pioneering members of our network. Since then, we’ve been regularly adding worthy destinations – culinary capitals where the food tells an even bigger story – to our network. Today, we work in over 20 different locations on four continents.