Trips and Events
Here are some reviews of places we’ve been to and other things that we have experienced.
Featured review
Paris – June 2026
We went to Paris (our first time) through Edible Destinations by Epitourean. The tour included six nights stay at the Hôtel Résidence Henri IV, 50 Rue des Bernardins, in the fifth arrondissement, the Latin Quarter, a tour guide and five scheduled food centered experiences.
The accommodations at the Residence Henri IV, were extremely nice and well appointed. Twenty-four hour service at the front desk was extremely professional, polite and helpful by each person who was at the front desk.
Only once, on the first day, did we take advantage of the continental breakfast that was included with the package. The food was serviceable. The breakfast area was small and felt crowded. The coffee was not good. However, the coffee from the Nespresso machine in the room was pretty good. But the breakfast at the hotel could not complete at all with any of the very nearby boulangeries which we visited daily.
The room was very clean, bed and pillows comfortable. Shower and bathroom clean, great water pressure and fast hot water. Small kitchenette with stove top, microwave, sink and refrigerator was good for storing and reheating leftovers.
Cooking Experiences
There were five planned experiences. All were very good, but a couple (Le Foodist and The Left Bank Walking Tour) were better than the others.
1. French Croissant Class – Maison Fleuret
This was the perfect way to start our cooking tour. Not too long, excellent hands-on experience and incredibly delicious results. Our instructor, Mai, was very good, friendly and extremely knowledgeable about baking. There were only seven of us in the class so it was very nice from a Q&A perspective with Mai. Not a lot was pre done so we felt like we were actually making the stuff right then and there. The oven was right there in the room with us. We put our names on the parchment paper so we got to eat the exact things that we each personally made. Our final products, croissants and pan de chocolate, were excellent. Some of the best that I’ve had (even at a couple of great boulangeries that we went to in Paris).
2. Cooking Class at La Cuisine Paris
This was a very nice experience with high quality food. Phillipe was our chef and our street guide as we went to various nearby shops to get the ingredients for our dinner. Phillipe was extremely personable and knowledgeable. There was quite a bit of hands-on prep work, but Phillipe did most of the actual cooking. The end result dinner of duck breast, Hasselback potatoes, salad and chocolate soufle was delicious. We were provided a pdf with the recipes of all of the things that we had.
Menu included cheese course, Duck Breast in Greenpepper sauce, salad, potatoes Hasselback and souflee! And of course, champagne and wine.
3. Food Market Tour & Cooking Class | Gourmet Lunch & Wine at Le Foodist
If you only had time for one cooking class in Paris, I would highly recommend this place. There was a very good amount of hands-on prep and hands-on cooking with not only very knowledgeable and helpful “how to” but also “why” we were doing things. I took away a lot more practical, general cooking knowledge from the class than I did from the first one we went to.
Our chef and street tour guide was Frederic. He was extremely personable, engaging and was a great instructor. Our proposed menu was a mushroom first plate and a main plate of salmon with a beurre blanc sauce and ratatouille. Before we left to go shopping, Frederic asked if everyone was okay with the menu. A couple of people did not want the salmon nor the mushrooms. For those two or three people, Frederic substituted cod and asparagus. What a great example of his hospitality and flexibility to pivot like that on the fly. Dessert was homemade vanilla ice cream. Unfortunately, we never received the actual recipes for this dinner. I’d still like to get the recipes.
4. Left Bank Culinary Walking Tour
If you only could do one culinary experience in Paris, this would be it. This was by far the absolute best experience provided by Edible Destinations! Our guide Romain, was very charismatic and knowledgeable. He had a great passion for the food and the area that we walked through.
I felt that I got a lot of practical knowledge about cheese and wine that I could use when I got back home. And Romain sent a list of everything that we had! It was great that there were only six of us on this walking tour.
We walked to several shops for baguettes, cheese, chocolate, fruit and wine. Finally winding up at the Marche Saint-Germain wine shop, Bacchus et Ariane, where we partook of all that we gathered. We had six cheeses and three wines. Romain, who was a cheese monger in a previous time, gave us detailed information on each cheese and wine.
5. Scenic Seine River Dinner Cruise – Bateaux Parisiens
Sharing time with our fellow tour mates and seeing the beautiful sites of the city from the Seine was memorable. The food, not so much. This was our farewell event. A dinner cruise on the Seine. If we were just on a regular “tourist” type of tour, this would have been okay (at best). But this being a “culinary” tour, this dinner cruise just didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the week. The quality of the food on the boat could not compare at all with the any of the great culinary experiences we had throughout the week (both those provided by Edible Destinations and those that we had on our own time).
From a culinary perspective, this was a bit of a letdown. It was standard fare. The food and service could have been from any touristy-like dinner experience anywhere else in the world. Everyone on the tour had to agree to the same thing (entree, main plate and desert) before we boarded. We went along with the general consensus, but I really would have made different selections. The one glass of champagne and the couple of glasses of wine were okay.
Overall Impression
Tour Host – Philippe – Phil was very good. Communication via WhatsApp was excellent. I liked that he took photos at the events and sent them to us. He stuck around at the beginning and end of each event to make sure that we got there and could find our way back. Although he did interact with some of the chefs and Romain, I did not feel that he was intruding on their gigs.
Communication – In general, for the most part, email communication was pretty good from initial booking to end of tour.
Pacing / Free Time – I liked the free day and the free time in general that was built into the tour. I thought that it was a very good mix of scheduled events and free time. I never felt rushed at all.
Value for Dollar Spent – I am a very big believer in “value for dollar spent”. If something costs a lot of money, if I’ve had a good experience, I quickly forget about the cost because the good memories of the experience far outweigh the memories of what it cost.
Even when something doesn’t cost a lot of money, if I don’t have a good experience, I feel bad about having spent even a small amount of money on it.
I think that this tour gave me a good “value for dollar spent”.