Sur La Table Launches Immersive Culinary Tours

Sur La Table has just launched a new series of immersive travel experiences tailored for travelers with a passion for culinary adventures. Sur La Table Culinary Journeys is a new series of experiences designed for those who love cuisine rooted in culture and want to learn about the history of foods that have shaped communities around the world.

In collaboration with Academic Travel Abroad Inc., a leader in educational travel with over 70 years of expertise, Sur La Table is offering travelers a chance to dive deeply into the culinary heritage of various destinations.

The famous kitchen retailer known for its high-quality cookware and culinary tools is offering intimate explorations of food-driven destinations that include trips to Northwestern France, specifically Normandy and Brittany, as well as Provence and the French Riviera with stays in Marseille and Nice.

Guests experiencing these trips will experience the best of each local town’s gastronomic culture. From hands-on experiences and live demonstrations to cooking classes, exclusive food and farm tours, and more, each curated itinerary showcases the most iconic and noteworthy places to eat, drink and to dive into the region’s cuisine.

Under the guidance of Meredith Abbot, Culinary Director and trip expert at Sur La Table, curious travelers will connect with artisans and chefs who bring unparalleled passion to their craft to discover the unique flavors and vibrant cultures of renowned culinary destinations.

“We hope that our guests take away some unique goodies or souvenirs they’ve picked up, something they can’t find in the States, hopefully something from a local craftsperson or shop,” explains Abbott. “But more importantly, new skills and knowledge that they can use in their everyday life.”

“Sur La Table strives to empower people to live their best lives through cooking, and offering trips through Culinary Journeys allows us to expose people to new cultures, customs, ingredients, techniques, and new people to enrich their lives.”

Since joining Sur La Table in 2017, Abbott has created and taught an estimated 23,000 annual cooking classes — in-store, online, and via a YouTube instructional series called On The Table. In addition to years of cooking experience, Abbot leads these new culinary trips with a mission to inspire home chefs to embrace their most fulfilled lives through the art of cooking.

I had the opportunity to join the first of the Culinary Journeys, which debuted this fall in France. The inaugural trip took place in Provence and the French Riviera and showcased the ancestral growing regions, vibrant marketplaces, and chefs and artisans that make this part of the world special.

“We decided to start with France and Italy based on the popularity of these cuisines in our cooking classes,” says Abbott. “Also, our Founder, Shirley Collins, got her inspiration to open up the first Sur La Table from her travels to France in the 1970s, so we wanted to pay homage to that as well.”

Highlights of the trip included two educational and intimate food tours. Our first tour was of Marseille, the oldest city in France, led by Marseille food expert Alexis Steinman. We explored the diversity of this culinary scene which is heavily influenced by a number of cultures ranging from the Mediterranean and Jerusalem to Morocco and Algeria.

We enjoyed culinary specialties that included pistou soup, a seasonal soup made with vegetables and pistou – a crushed mixture of garlic, olive oil and basil; Marseille navette, sweet Provençal biscuits; and panisse, one of Marseille’s most popular snacks made from chickpea flour and olive oil.

We also were led on a food tour of Aix en Provence, where we strolled through the pristine beauty and elegance of this notoriously ritzy city. Specialities include its sweet almond dessert, calissons; bouillabaisse, ratatouille and tapenade.

In addition to food tours, we ventured to Le Fare Les Oliviers for a wine and olive oil tasting; embarked on a road trip to Rhone for an exclusive visit to the Souleiado Museum dedicated to the hallmark producer of Provencal textiles; and even journeyed out to Salins de Giraud where we learned about the natural formations that influence the terroir of Mediterranean French sea salt.

“We want to offer experiences that you might not be able to put together on your own. A balance of history, tours of factories that make housewares and food products, farms, cultural experiences, and of course, cooking classes,” continues Abbott. “Diving a little deeper into topics than a typical tour or blog post might give you.”

My favorite experiences were the cooking classes, which included a hands-on cooking class dedicated to Marseille’s most popular dish, bouillabaisse, with local chef, Chef Gilles Conchy.

From dining at notable restaurants that included La Mercerie, an intimate, bustling restaurant known for its use of quality local ingredients and natural wine selection, and Kin, which showcases the head chef’s Congolese traditions with Mediterranean flavors, we thoroughly immersed ourselves in the cuisine of this historic city.

Our second leg of the trip took place in Nice. On our way to the famously beautiful Nice, we made a couple of fun stops. First, we stopped at a small town in the French Riviera to visit a glassblowing factory to learn how the signature style of Biot glassware is achieved.

The second stop included a visit to the Musée Escoffier, a culinary museum dedicated to one of the fathers of French gastronomy, Auguste Escoffier, where we tried the famed chef’s legendary Peche Melba.

Our eventful trip wrapped up with a special tour of the organic farm Potager de Saquier where we picked a selection of herbs and vegetables to prepare for our final meal together. We had one last cooking class led by Rosa Jackson featuring Nicoise specialties accompanied by sommelier-selected wines.

Sur La Table Culinary Journeys is set to expand in 2025 with new itineraries in Paris and Southern Italy.

This article originally appeared in TravePulse.