Hoping to do a Tapas Tour on our first nights in both Seville and Madrid to get a good intro into the food in each place. There are so many options on tripadvisor, viator, getyourguide, etc. but wanted to see if anyone had suggestions of tours they really enjoyed and felt were a decent value.
Posted by
Walnut Creek, CA
545 posts
In Madrid, I did a tapas tour with devour Tours. It was an excellent tour! And we ate lots of good food!
https://devourtours.com/tours/madrid-tapas-taverns-history-tour/
Posted by
New York, NY
1582 posts
dkinny23 - This a tappas tour video
Posted by
Idaho, USA
7283 posts
We just did this one last month in Sevilla and both really liked it!
https://www.spainfoodsherpas.com/seville/seville-food-wine-tour/
Posted by
Central Indiana
205 posts
The various companies you listed are not actual tour operators. They’re aggregators. I recommend booking directly with tour operators like Devour, Walks of Spain, etc.
I personally have used Devour in both Sevilla and Madrid and both were good.
Posted by
OP
40 posts
Thanks everyone I will look at those suggestions!
And yes, that’s true. I was just generalizing that there seems to be a lot of tour companies (compiled on websites like TripAdvisor and Viator), none of which I know anything about.
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
7554 posts
I would also suggest Devour Tours if you want an organized Tapas crawl.
But, I have not taken their tours, my recommendation comes from using several of their itineraries for exploring on my own, and especially have used videos by one of their founders, James Blick.
I strongly urge you to head to YouTube and look up "James Blick" or "Spain Revealed". He has loads of videos, hitting tapas spots, mainly in Madrid, but throughout Spain. Lots of quality spots listed, and you get a sense of the types of Tapas, Raciones, and Pintxos available.
Posted by
New York
9 posts
We did this one in Sevilla. It was excellent. It's a one-person show and not a big company.
https://azahar-sevilla.com/sevilletapas/tapas-tours/tapas-tour/
We did this one in Madrid.
https://www.walkandeatspain.com/
The one in Madrid was good, but I would not really call it a great value. The Sevilla tour was wonderful. Shawn took us to some amazing places, was great company, and was so generous with her food recommendations for the rest of our trip.
Posted by
Central Indiana
205 posts
Good call on the James Blick (under the name Spain Revealed) videos. I do think the Sevilla tour I did with Devour was better than the Madrid one, but they were years apart, so it’s hard to say. It’s not hard to put your own tapas crawl together in either city, but you do learn some interesting history on these tours and, at least in our case, meet some nice people. We’re still friends with a woman we met on the Sevilla tour and ended up doing a self led tapas crawl in Madrid with her later in the trip.
Posted by
OP
40 posts
Thank you everyone, will look into everything you all posted! Much appreciated!
During this trip we plan on eating our weight in Tapas so will for sure do our own "tours" throughout our trip, but figured it would be nice to start the trip off with a formal tour so we can learn a bit more about the food as well as some history / culture.
Posted by
Madrid
24 posts
Easy with the "do your own tapas tour thing". If it is a weekend you will be competing with thousands of locals that know 10 times more than you do about where to go, that time to go so that the bar is not full to the brim and what to order.
Posted by
Central Indiana
205 posts
With all due respect, it’s tapas, not brain surgery. Everyone encouraged the OP to take a tour or tours but one can manage without them, especially if you do a bit of advance research. Will you be as adept at it as Madrileños? Of course not, but part of travel is getting outside your comfort zone. The fact that OP wants to do tours to get acclimated is great; I fully support that. But these tours are not cheap and for anyone reading this who does t want to take a tour or it’s not in their budget, I don’t want them to feel like they can’t enjoy the tapas experience.