Thessaloniki food tour or wine tasting: which one should you book?
Updated October 18, 2026 · 5 min read
The answer first. For a first food tour, book the open market food tour with tasting. It costs €45 per person, lasts 3 hours and has 4.8 stars from 229 reviews. If you want a longer walk with drinks included and a chef as your guide, the food tastings and drinks tour costs €80, lasts 4 hours and has 5.0 stars from 264 reviews.
What is on offer
| Tour | Length | From | Rating | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open market food tour with tasting | 3 hours | €45 | 4.8 (229) | The open markets and traditional tavernas |
| Food tastings and drinks tour with a chef | 4 hours | €80 | 5.0 (264) | Local dishes such as koulouri, plus drinks |
| Food tour: a feast of local delicacies | 2.5 hours | €76 | 4.8 (42) | A shorter tasting walk |
| Small-group wine tasting tour with appetizers | 2.5 hours | €84 | 4.9 (35) | Local wines in the old centre’s wine bars |
| Authentic Greek cooking with a local family | 2.5 hours | €59 | 4.9 (139) | Cooking in a family home and sharing the meal |
The two most popular tours have more than 200 reviews each. Everything else in the list has fewer than 140, and several have fewer than 40, so treat those ratings as a good sign and not a verdict.
Food tour or wine tasting?
The food tours are about eating your way through the city. The market tour promises a visit to the open food markets and to well-known traditional tavernas, with the history of the markets as the story. The chef-led tour lists tastings of local dishes, among them koulouri, a sesame bread ring, and drinks. Both are walking tours, so expect to be on your feet for most of the time.
The wine tasting is a different kind of outing. It is a small-group tour that pairs local wines with appetizers in the city’s wine bars. It is the better pick if wine is the point and you would rather sit down than walk between markets. The listing does not name the wines or the bars, so ask the operator what the tasting covers before you pay €84.
Cooking instead of tasting
If you would rather make the food, the family cooking class at €59 has the strongest numbers of the hands-on options, with 4.9 stars from 139 reviews. You cook family recipes from scratch in a home in Thessaloniki and then eat them. A second class, with a market visit and lunch, costs €92 and has only 17 reviews. A cocktail workshop with ouzo and mastiha costs €44. The dakos tasting at an olive oil delicatessen costs €30 and is the cheapest way to try something in an hour, but it is a tasting at a delicatessen and not a meal.
What to check on the booking page
Whether drinks are included, and how many. The chef-led tour says drinks are part of it; the market tour’s listing does not say. Which dietary needs the operator can handle, because a tasting route is hard to change on the day. And the meeting point and start time, which are fixed per departure.
Who should skip it
Skip a food tour if you plan to eat at a long lunch anyway, because the tastings are small portions and add up to a meal only loosely. Vegetarians and anyone with allergies should write to the operator first. If you prefer to find your own tavernas, a walking tour gives you the city’s story without the food.
Our recommendation
Book the open market food tour for most visits. It is the cheapest of the food walks and has 229 reviews. Add the wine tasting as a separate outing if wine matters to you. See every option on the food and wine tours page.
