Secret Food Tour Seville

On my recent trip to Seville, food once again, proved to be the best introduction to a foreign land.

So much of our time in Seville was focused on eating (and then napping and then eating more and then repeating). But soon we found ourselves denying churros and saving up space instead as it was time for our Secret Food Tour.

I’d already tried SFT in Budapest, and since I learned so much from it about a city that I already knew, I figured that trying it in a foreign city would be even more exciting! Normally the tours are in the afternoon, but since not even tapas could make the 3 p.m. August heat enjoyable, we got to take a 7 p.m. evening tour instead with our guide, Alejandro.

Alejandro was so informative and you could tell that he knew what he was talking about! Every place we went to he was greeted warmly by the chef, which gave us that insider feeling. Like, instead of walking into a new place with “tourist” stamped on our foreheads, we were welcomed with open arms. That kind of ease is invaluable, I think. We got to skip over the part where we felt like an inadequate/awkward visitor and jump straight to the part where we dove into local food with the gusto of, well…a local!

And doing the food tour set us up for the rest of our time in Seville! We were introduced to different foods and drinks that we wouldn’t have known to order ourselves, but they became staples of the rest of our stay (tinto con limón, I’m looking at you). We also went to certain places that I know we wouldn’t have found on our own. And since our group was small, I didn’t feel like we were a parade of tourists stampeding in, either, which was really nice.

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Aside from history, we got to hear Alejandro’s thoughts on the Seville of today, whether that meant him telling us about the best riverside bars/Flamenco shows/viewpoints, showing us around local neighborhoods, or getting more insight on the public opinion of bullfighting.

By the end of the tour, we were stuffed. When I closed my eyes that night I saw a montage of all of the beautiful Spanish food that had passed through my lips…the acorn-fed ham, sliced to thin perfection. The tender pork cheek, almost falling apart in its savory sauce. The deliciously thick egg and potato tortilla (which was something completely different from the flat Mexican tortilla I grew up with in the States). That night, Alejandro sent us an email with all of the names of the places and foods we had tried on the tour–it was our culinary treasure map for the rest of our time in Seville!

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Alejandro had so much enthusiasm for the food he showed us, and for the history of Seville itself. By the end we felt closer to the city, like we could be a part of it, and that was priceless.

Pin it for later!

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Bonus Round: Secret Wine Tour, Lisbon, Portugal

We were such fans of the SFT in Seville that we booked a wine tour when we got to Lisbon (Secret Food Tours has a loooooot of locations, haha).

As someone who knows very little about wine (but secretly dreams of being that person who swirls it effortlessly while detecting notes of cherry and heavy tannins and oak barrels and such), I really appreciated how Ines was able to break down the basics of wine for me (girl knows what she’s talking about!).

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Anyways, we spent an afternoon tasting five different wines from the crazily diverse landscapes of Portugal, and it was such a fun way to learn more about the country and more about Lisbon. So far as I know, we’ll definitely look to see if there’s a Secret Food Tour in any of the locations we visit from now on!

*Thank you Secret Food Tours for gifting this service in Seville! All opinions are my own.