- New South American Food Tours: Culinary Backstreets has launched two immersive food tours in Buenos Aires (“Backstreet Bites”) and Rio de Janeiro (“Culinary Soul of Old Rio”), focusing on migration, memory, and local flavors.
- Buenos Aires Culinary Journey: The Buenos Aires tour explores the city’s food history through cafés, bakeries, and parrillas, highlighting immigrant influences from Italy, Spain, and Syria, and includes iconic Argentine dishes like medialunas, empanadas, and dulce de leche helado.
- Rio de Janeiro Cultural and Culinary Exploration: The Rio tour begins in the port zone, tracing Afro-Brazilian culinary traditions and immigrant contributions, featuring dishes like feijoada and moqueca, and exploring food’s role in cultural resistance.
- Ethos of Culinary Backstreets: The company emphasizes food as a living archive of history and identity, spotlighting unsung culinary heroes who preserve traditions rather than focusing solely on trendy restaurants or celebrity chefs.
Culinary Backstreets, a leader in narrative-driven food tours, has enthusiastically expanded its offerings in South America with two wonderful new full-day experiences. “Backstreet Bites of Buenos Aires: Cafés, Parrillas and Beyond” successfully launched on September 10, 2025, and “Discovering the Culinary Soul of Old Rio” debuted in May. These immersive walking tours beautifully offer travelers a deeper understanding of each city’s unique culinary identity, brilliantly shaped by migration, improvisation, and the often-unsung heroes of the kitchen.
In Buenos Aires, the tour wonderfully traces the city’s rich food story through delightful historic cafés, bodegones, bakeries, and parrillas. Guests are treated to delicious flaky medialunas, savory empanadas, and impressive platters of grilled meat, all while discovering how immigrant flavors from Italy, Spain, Syria, and beyond have joyfully converged into a distinctly Argentine table. The tour includes charming stops at a century-old spice shop, a classic pizzeria serving fugazzetta, and even a hidden cellar beneath a flower shop with a menu that playfully nods to the city’s port-city past. The day culminates with scrumptious helado swirled in dulce de leche, Argentina’s most cherished flavor.
For those eager to explore Rio de Janeiro, Culinary Backstreets’ “Discovering the Culinary Soul of Old Rio” walking tour beautifully traces the city’s food story through its oldest neighborhoods. Starting in the vibrant port zone, where Portuguese colonists first arrived, guests joyfully explore the historic downtown and surrounding areas. They savor amazing feijoada, moqueca, and refreshing tropical fruit juices, learning how Afro-Brazilian communities resiliently preserved culinary traditions and how diverse immigrant groups added delightful new layers to the city’s foodscape. The tour visits Rio’s oldest café, a bustling open-air market, and the innovative restaurant of an Afro-Brazilian chef reimagining Bahian classics with contemporary flair. This inspiring tour also delves into the powerful role of food in cultural resistance, from samba’s origins in backyard gatherings to the rise of community kitchens in favelas.
Both tours beautifully embody Culinary Backstreets’ core philosophy: that food is not merely sustenance, but a vibrant, living archive of migration, memory, and resilience. The company proudly seeks out the unsung heroes of the kitchen—the passionate bakers, grill masters, spice sellers, and street cooks whose invaluable stories define the true flavor of a city. These wonderful tours are an invitation to walk, listen, and eat with intention, guided by authentic voices that truly define the heart and soul of each place.
