Great Foodie Destinations in Europe

I'm a self-confessed foodie. I love food, I love to eat and I love to cook. I'm fascinated with learning where food comes from, how it's prepared and even how restaurants cook and source their ingredients.

To me, Europe is the ultimate destination for foodies. Whether dining at a Michelin-starred Paris landmark or munching on fresh selections from a local Italian open-air marketplace, you can really experience the true range of foodie culture. Here are the top five cities in Europe for foodies:

Paris
To me, Paris is, was, and will always be the greatest food city in the world. Good, fresh food is a way of life here, locals demand nothing less. The greatest thing is that you will get the most amazing meal not only at the well known temples of gastronomy, but at the nameless corner local bistro you happen to find by chance. You can get the freshest, most wonderful cheese (or bread, or fruit, or meat) at any local specialty shop, you don't need a guidebook. The pride that every local merchant, whether they sell cheese, bread, meat, etc., shows in their products, their presentation and their shop as a whole. This is why Paris and Europe remain such a perfect foodie destination.

I had one of the greatest meals of my life at the famed Restaurant Jules Verne. Take the greatest chef in modern France, Alain Ducasse, pair him with the greatest location, the second level of the Eiffel Tower, and you get a magical dining experience. Reservations are essential and are best made through the concierge of your hotel, if you are staying at a luxury property. A table next to the window is important to fully enjoy the experience, be sure to request one. This is a dressy place, dress up and enjoy the ambiance. Ties and jackets are not required, but we find the better you dress, the better service you receive. This foodie destination isn't cheap, expect to spend about $300 for lunch and $500 for dinner, more if you indulge in wine. It's worth every penny.

Restaurant Jules Verne
Tour Eiffel 75007
Phone: 33 01 45 55 61 44
lejulesverne-paris.com

I find the best time to go to Paris is late November. The weather may be a bit chilly, but you will be completely free of the hoards of tourists who take over the city each summer. I try to go the third Thursday in November, the night of the new Beaujolais. Beaujolais is a wine meant to be drunk young, so the main producer, Georges Duboeuf ships out the new vintage via air freight to Paris and the world on the same day. That night, the streets of Paris are filled with celebrating wine drinkers, going bar to bar enjoying the new wine. It's a great foodie experience.

When I travel to Paris, I like to pick a little neighborhood to stay in, then you get to know the local merchants and bistros, even if you are only there for a week. I always like the St. Germain area, the 5th arrondissement. To stay, I like the Manor de St Germain du Pres. It's a great little Best Western property, located directly above the famous Brasserie Lipp. The hotel is great, Brasserie Lipp is good, but to me a bit over-rated and over-priced. It is an experience, so try it once and then find your own favorite spot.

Hotel Au Manoir Du St. Germain
153, boulevard Saint-Germain
75006 Paris
Phone: 33 01 42 22 21 65
hotelaumanoir.com

Sorrento
When you combine an Italian love for food and life with a wonderful Mediterranean setting, you get a perfect foodie destination. Sorrento may have a lot of package tourist groups and little tiny beach, but this is a wonderful town to come and eat. To me, the freshness of the ingredients, the Italian cooking style and the beautiful setting provide some of my favorite meals of my travels.

This is a summer destination and virtually shuts down during the winter. I find the best times to visit are very late May and very late August. You get about two weeks at the opening of the season and the closing where you can avoid the big tourist crowds.

It's hard to get bad food in Sorrento, just avoid the tourist crowds to find the good spots. There are a lot of British pubs here, which serve typically British food for British tourists. We love having pizza at La Stalla and recommend it for all foodies. Try a wonderful sausage pizza with the house white wine and sit back and enjoy life.

La Stalla
Via Piet 30
Sorrento

As Sorrento is a tourist area, you need to be careful for hotels or restaurants that cater only to tourists. They just want to get you in and out, they don't care about your experience and they don't care if you return. They do some much bulk business with tour operators, there will be another huge group next week, your return business isn't essential to them. You need to patronize establishments that value your business and want your experience to be great, so you return and you tell your friends and colleagues. These small operations can only survive by providing superior service so they receive good word-of-mouth recommendations.

We've stayed a few times at the Hilton Sorrento Palace, a beautiful property overlooking the water. The service is a bit more professional here and after some negative experiences with little family-run hotels, we feel more comfortable here. The hotel has a great pool and is a great base to explore the local area including the wonderful Amalfi Coast and the other little coastal hill towns beyond Sorrento. It's nice to come back to large room with all the great hotel amenities, after day of shopping at the local markets and dining in the local restaurants.

Hilton Sorrento Palace
Via S. Antonio 13
Sorrento, Italy 80067
Phone: 39 081 8784141
hilton.com

Madrid
To me, Madrid has the best range of dining from ultra-modern to old-school classics. This was the home of molecular gastronomy, where foods and meals are de-constructed, then re-constructed to create truly weird and wonderful dishes. While that trend is ending, I'm sure Madrid will lead the way with the next, new thing in dining.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from high-tech food, is Madrid's classic Spanish cooking and restaurants, some of which have been serving for hundred of years. We love Botin, serving classic Spanish fare like roast suckling pig and roast baby lamb in a building from 1620 near Madrid's Plaza Mayor. After a day of walking the city, it's a perfect place for a pitcher of sangria and a hearty meal.

Botin
Calles de los Cuchilleros 17
28005 Madrid, Spain
Phone: 913 664 217
botin.es

Madrid's great contribution to foodie culture is tapas culture. Tapas are little bar snacks served fresh and sometimes unique to the establishment that serves them. Across Madrid, tapaterias are small bars, mainly catering to locals, that serve great beers and drinks, along with an amazing selection of little hot and cold snacks. Think shrimp, ham, sausages, meatballs and all kinds of pickled and spiced meats and fish. The tradition is to hop from bar to bar drinking and sampling each places specialties. Now that's foodie heaven. Try the area in and near the Mercado San Miguel, a old structure built in 1916, recently renovated and again selling and serving the freshest food in Madrid. Just look for the little bars and try the ones that are the most crowded.

The name Ritz symbolizes luxury and style. In 1910, Cesar Ritz opened his hotel in Madrid to cater to visiting royalty in town to visit the Spanish court. The hotel was created to provide a luxurious and palatial feel to it's royal guests and continues the tradition today. Even in the most basic of rooms, which start at a reasonable 250 euros per night, you will receive the impeccable service the Ritz is known for. The location is perfect in the center of Madrid. We also love the hotel's Goya Restaurant, which offers wonderful Spanish cuisine, influenced by French and Basque tastes. The chef is Spanish and they offer a 100 euro Degustation Menu, with samples and tastes from a range of eras of Spanish cooking. The current offerings include a "Consome Sevigne" as they served in 1912, braised crawfish tails in cabbage leaves, as served to the President of France in 1982 and a beef tenderloin prepared "Perigueux" style, as they did for New Year's Eve 1936. As a foodie, it's interesting to see how cooking styles and tastes have changes over the last century.

Hotel Ritz
Plaza de la Lealtad 5
28014 Madrid, Spain
Phone: 34 91 701 67 67
ritzmadrid.com

Marseilles
If you are a foodie who loves seafood, this port city in the south of France has the best in the world. Combine the freshest seafood caught daily, with French cooking and a touch of African spice and you get Marseillaise cooking. There is an Italian influence here as well, as this was once an important part of the Roman empire. It all works together perfectly to create a unique taste only found here.

This foodie city has struggled with unemployment, drugs and crime and although renovated and renewed, it retains some of that grittiness. This is a walking city, foodies should just walk and follow their nose and their eyes to find all kinds of wonderful things. A great walk is up La Canebiere, the main street, starting right at the water of the the Vieux Port. Like any other French city, along with great restaurants and bistros, every little cheese shop, deli, bakery and other little stores will all be wonderful, as the proprietors take pride in offering the best and freshest products. This is why I think France is such a wonderful destination for true foodies.

Foodies visiting Marseilles should not miss Mets de Provence, a port-side restaurant with both amazing seafood and meat dishes. The views over the boats are beautiful and this is a place where you can take a break from seafood and opt for an amazing lamb or beef selection.

Mets de Provence
18 Quai de Rive Neuve
Vieux Port
Phone: 04 91 33 35 38

The best time to go is May, the weather is warm and the sun has that Mediterranean magic that drew painters like Van Gogh and, Cezanne and Matisse to the region. Getting to Marseilles is now easy thanks to fast three-hour TGV train service from Paris. Marseilles has an airport and is also within an hour of Nice airport, which has direct service from New York City.

For our hotel, we like the Citadines here is Marseilles and in other cities in France. Yes, it's a corporate apartment-hotel, but you get a two bedroom suite for the price of a normal small hotel room. You also get a better taste of local life and a small kitchen, so you can bring food back and enjoy meals there too. We find the staff extremely helpful, as they are used to guiding guests who come for longer stays and recommend great, local places, not tourist spots.

Citadines City Centre Marseilles
4 place Pierre Bertas
12001 Marseilles France
citadines.com

Lyon
I may have saved the best for last, as to me, Lyon is truly the foodie and gastronomic center of the world. The city is in the southwest of France, closer to Geneva, Switzerland than it is to Paris. The city of Lyon has a great website (lyon.fr) filled with current events and it's a great place to start planning for a trip. Great food here is an art, a way of life. Even more so than Paris, Lyon really considers itself and prides itself as having the greatest food in the world. The preparation, the cooking style, the fresh ingredients, everything truly comes together here.

The city is home to restaurants unique to this area called bouchons. They only serve traditional Lyonnaise old-school cuisine, which is rich dishes like sausages, roast pork and beef and duck pate. This is not fancy haute French cuisine, this is old fashioned, hearty peasant food originally cooked for all the silk workers who were in the area in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are only 20 officially certified bouchons, and every foodie needs to have a meal there. Our favorite is Chez Hugon, which is presided over by a wonderful older lady who will make sure you have a great meal. She's like your friendly aunt, always suggesting you try new things.

Chez Hugon
12 Pizay
Phone: 04 78 28 10 94

For more modern cuisine, my favorite place in Lyon is to have a lunch on the patio at L'Auberge de l'Ile on a sunny afternoon. It's on it's own little island in the middle of the Saone River and is almost like a gastronomic resort. This is food taken to a high art.

L'Auberge de l'Ile
Place Notre Dame
I'Ile Barbe, 69009 Lyon
Phone: 33 04 78 83 99 49
aubergedelile.com

Sunday mornings in Lyon offer a great art / antique market along the Soane River, where there's always something interesting to see. To stay, it's always Le Petit Tramassac. It's a little bed and breakfast place right in the heart of the old city of Lyon. You get the whole top floor ( third floor, no elevator) of a classic 17th century building, complete with some original stone walls and wood beams. Its a large unit, with a living area, separate bedroom and a kitchen. The unit rents for about 100 euro per night, but the real bargain is to stay for a week, where the rate drops to about 500 euro for seven days. You must book in advance, but booking is easy on their website and they do accept credit cards. It makes a great base for a foodie tour of the entire area beyond Lyon.

Le Petit Tramassac
lepetittramassac.fr/en


As the editor of a travel website, travel4people.com, I am constantly traveling and searching for new foodie destinations across Europe. I am planning some travel to eastern Europe later this summer, with stops in Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic and hope to find all kinds of new and exciting foods to eat.