While visiting New York with my kids this summer, I had a chance to show them what I especially love about travel: a food tour! New York is certainly full of them, in any kind of theme you can possibly imagine from Brooklyn pizza to Chinese, to bagels to Italian mob boss tours. I chose a universal favorite for the kids: a dessert tour! Sugartooth Tours has several neighborhoods that they cover on their tours, and since I was especially interested in seeing the High Line, we did the Sweeter than Sugar Chelsea/West Village Dessert Tour. These tours are $55 per person, and luckily I was able to book this tour for free with my Chase points at a fantastic conversion rate.
The first stop was at City Cakes, which is a humble little place down in a basement. We came here for half pound cookies which did not disappoint! They were so thick I’m not even sure how they bake them. We chose the chocolate chip and nutella.
Chelsea Market and the High Line
Then we headed to Chelsea Market which was unbelievable! It’s such a cool place that would deserve lots of time to walk around and look at everything. Our guide hooked us up with freshly made warm cinnamon sugar donuts from The Doughnuttery which melted in our mouths. The market was slammed full of people and it was hard to move around. From there, we entered the High Line, and walked south for a bit until we came out in the Meatpacking District.
Next we visited the Sugar Factory which is a restaurant that looks like a lot of fun, with really huge and creative drinks and desserts. There are lots of photos of celebrities that have been there. This stop was all about the candy! We each received a little box that we could fill with whatever we liked from the huge dispensers.
Next we headed over to Ample Hills Creamery to sample some delicious homemade ice cream. They had really unique and fun flavors.
The West Village
Moving right along, we walked through the Village which was in itself very interesting because it’s so unlike the rest of Manhattan. I enjoyed hearing about all the old streets and the history of the neighborhoods which goes back to old Dutch times. We visited a very old chocolatier called Li-Lac Chocolates where we sampled 2 kinds of artisanal chocolate. Sadly, I didn’t take any photos at that stop.
Our final stop for the tour was at Molly’s Cupcakes, a little bakery that’s hard to miss due to its bright yellow paint. We were able to sample a mini cupcake in our choice of cake and icing combination. The cake flavors were chocolate, vanilla, red velvet, (and maybe banana?) and the icing flavors were chocolate, vanilla, brown butter, or cream cheese. We could also add sprinkles if we chose. This bakery has fun swings you can sit in, so of course my kids enjoyed that.
All in all, it was lots of fun and I’m glad we got to see so many sights packed into one 2.5 hour tour. I know we definitely went places that I’d never have been able to find on my own in such a short period of time. I love tours because they’re so efficient! And when you get to eat all along the way, it’s just that much better. Food tour with kids? Maybe not a good idea. It kind of diminished the fun since I was parenting at the same time but I’m still glad we did it.
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