The top food tours & cooking classes in Sydney

Multicultural and neighbourhood food tours 

Sydney’s abundance of cultures informs the culinary fabric of the city and a food tour puts you at the front of the queue to indulge in all the tasty connections. Street food and storytelling are at the core of Local Sauce’s popular Chinatown tour. Known for its fun, interactive outings, the 2.5-hour tour comprises pub trivia-style games and street-food stops for snacking on the go. Discover the history of Sydney’s Chinese community and leave with the inside scoop on the best places to eat in Chinatown (and all the must-order dishes).

BBQ and roasted duck hanging in a restaurant window in Chinatown

For an experience centred on Sydney’s more contemporary icons, book a Taste of Sydney tour with Ultimately Sydney where you’ll go from Barangaroo to Marrickville, sipping locally distilled gin, tasting a world-famous cake and having a dumpling feast. Or join The Sydney Connection on a one-night dining tour, with a cocktail, entree, main and dessert at different venues in either Potts Point, Darlinghurst or Surry Hills. 

Gourmet Food Safaris (run by lauded broadcaster Maeve O'Meara OAM) and Taste Cultural Food Tours (a social enterprise and charity) take groups to culturally rich neighbourhoods around Sydney, and tours are led by local, knowledgeable guides. Be immersed in the Italian community of Haberfield, taste your way through Harris Park (Little India) or eat the city’s best Lebanese food in southwest Sydney.  

Little India, Harris Park

Mia Cucina specialises in private, bespoke culinary tours focusing on Italian, Chinese, Turkish and Vietnamese cuisines, so you can take your pick. Or join a Forkabout guided tour through the trendy eat streets of Surry Hills to taste the bounty of many cultures. If you’ve got a particular hotspot or flavour you’d like to explore, Splendour Tailored Tours will create an itinerary to suit you, but you can also hand over the reins and let the team take you on a day or evening adventure touring Sydney’s classic food experiences. 

Splendour Tailored Tours, Sydney

Foraging and produce tours 

Get your hands dirty on a foraging tour with wild food expert Diego Bonetto. Here, you’ll learn to pick edible and medicinal plants of the area you’re touring, with Centennial Parklands, Clovelly and further afield jaunts on offer too. Alternatively, take a self-guided culinary excursion to the producers of Sydney with the Harvest Trails and Markets farm gates along the Hawkesbury. Depending on where you drop into, you’ll end up picking your own oranges, apples or tomatoes at family-run orchards; tasting gourmet goat cheese; and sipping apple cider and boutique wines. 

Shields Orchard, Bilpin

Bush tucker, native ingredients and Aboriginal food history 

Sydney is a sprawling metropolis but, for millennia, it was the market, pantry and kitchen for many Aboriginal clans. Learn about that history, the medicinal and culinary use of the land’s native ingredients, and taste some bush tucker along the way with tours run by local Aboriginal people and organisations. The Royal Botanic Garden’sAboriginal Bush Tucker Tour takes you through the native Cadi Jam Ora garden, giving you lessons in botany plus a few samples to taste during the hour-long walk every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Splendour Tailored Tours’ Genuine Aboriginal Adventure explores Aboriginal art, tradition and cuisine over a half-day, culminating in a native ingredient-focused lunch

Splendour Tailored Tours, Sydney

Learn about the land’s original produce onsite, in nature, with Australia by Nature's Northern Beaches Salty Air and Aboriginal Bush Tucker tour or Salty Safaris’ Northern Beaches Small Group Day Tour, both run in collaboration with Aboriginal social enterprise Bush to Bowl. Go with Salty Safaris if you want to start the day with a surf lesson, or with Australia by Nature for an exclusive private tour including pick up and drop off from your hotel.     

Favourite lunch spot on tour with Salty Safaris, Sydney - Credit: Harrison Adams

Brewery and distillery tours 

Sydney is a craft brewing hotspot with a wealth of operators offering up their brews. Dave’s delivers behind-the-scenes insights on its full-day Hipsters and Hops Brewery Tour, taking you to three breweries plus a pub for a hearty lunch. As 17 of the city’s breweries are concentrated in the Inner West, it’s also easy to plot your own carless tour, and the Inner West Ale Trail is the perfect resource to guide you. 

But Sydney isn’t just a beer city, there’s a thriving small-batch spirit scene, with many makers running cocktail bars, tours and make-your-own classes in the same place they produce their spirits. If you’re keen to try a variety of things, book a Local Sauce Tours bar crawl to discover the best drinks in Surry Hills or Oxford Street. The latter comes with stories and local knowledge from a drag queen. 

Local Sauce Tours, Redfern - Credit: Local Sauce Tours

Cooking classes 

While there’s nothing better than having someone prepare a lavish meal for you, getting into the kitchen for a class ensures not just one great meal, but a lifetime of them. Bigger operations like Sydney Cooking School and Vive Cooking School offer a huge range of classes covering different cuisines and ability levels. Sydney Seafood School has a similarly wide array of cooking courses but with every class centred around using premium Australian seafood (you’ll be using the freshest produce available from the fish markets next door) as well as offering guest series from famous chefs and cookbook authors.  

Sydney Seafood School, Sydney Fish Market

If you’re interested in honing a particular cuisine or culture, join a class with a local expert or walk into the kitchen of a traditional family home. For the secrets of fresh pasta, gnocchi and the knowledge of which sauce to have with which shape, sign up for a pasta class at Pasta Emilia, a regionally focused lesson with Cucina Italiana Cooking School or a take on the skills of acclaimed chef Marcello Farioli with a class at his restaurant I Maccheroni.

I Maccheroni, Woollahra - Credit: Will Hartley

For a masterclass on Indian cuisine (pick from north Indian, south Indian or street food) join a group or private class with The Modern Desi. Or experience what it’s like to cook in a traditional Lebanese family kitchen with the mother-daughter-duo-run classes of Sunday Kitchen.

For butchery, Feather and Bone will teach you how to break down an entire animal or to make sausages (with all produce sourced from ethical, quality-focused farms). And, to learn how to make the most of your produce and minimise food waste, OzHarvest’s Cooking for a Cause classes are a great shout – all proceeds go to the company’s mission of redistributing food to those who need it.

If you’re more of a baker or budding pastry chef, iconic bakery Bourke Street Bakery will help you become a capable sourdough baker.  

Cooking for a Cause class with Ozharvest, Alexandria - Credit: Nikki To/Sydney Delicious