Exploring Culinary Delights with Knoxville Food Tours
My family had a chance to explore the delicious eats in Downtown Knoxville on a recent food tour with Knoxville Food Tours. It has been a few years since I have went on a food tour and I couldn’t wait to taste the culinary delights while learning about the history of the area. Knoxville Food Tours has been conducting tours since 2010 and offers several different tours at varying times and days. The tour we went on was a Sunday afternoon tour and took us to new restaurants that we have never dined at before. The first thing we saw when we arrived was this beautiful mural titled “Postcard From Knoxville.” This mural was designed by local muralist and artist, Bobbie Crews.
Our tour began at Visit Knoxville. Visit Knoxville is located in the heart of downtown on Gay St. It is the official convention and visitor’s bureau for Knoxville and Knox County. The visitor’s center is open seven days a week and welcomes visitors from all over the world. Visitors can “leave their mark” and staff will pin their location on the maps on the wall.
At Visit Knoxville, we started off our food tour with samplings of local products that are sold at the visitor’s center. We sampled a delicious barbecue sauce with mini hot dogs from Dead End BBQ, indulged in Olive Oil’s Best Friend dip from Sophie’s Choice , and washed it down with Goodson Brothers Coffee.
While we enjoyed our local eats, we had a chance to explore all the unique souvenirs and gifts that they sell.
After enjoying these delicious local treats, Paula (our guide and the owner of Knoxville Food Tours) led us to our our second stop on the Knoxville Food Tours. We ended up at Market Square to visit the Market House Cafe. Market House Cafe prides itself on producing fresh frood from scratch using locally sourced ingredients, whenever possible. They are proud to purchase most (if not all) of their produce from local farmers at the Farmer’s Market. On top of their delicious foods, you can enjoy fresh juice from their juice bar menu. I was impressed to find out that all of their juices are made to order. They also blend their own chai in house (the process take 2 1/2 hours.) During our visit we also sampled two of their potato salads and sandwiches.
Prohibition Whole Grain Potato Salad and Buskers Potato Salad
Odd Fellows #1 and Streaking the Strip Sandwiches
After we enjoyed all the deliciousness that Market House Cafe had to offer we headed off for a brief tour of Market Square before heading over to Gay St for our next stop. Paula provided us with a brief history of the Market Square space and the TVA buildings that are situated near the square.
Walking down Gay St. we learned a lot of fun facts from Paula about the area and history of the buildings. I loved the giant bronze statue we came upon on on the northwest corner of S. Gay St. and W. Church Ave. This sculpture is titled “Oarsman” and was Sculpted by David L. Phelps in 1988. This was Phelps first commissioned work.
The third stop on our Knoxville Food Tours led us to Bistro at the Bijou. Bistro at the Bijou is located in the 4th oldest building in Knoxville. It is connected to the Bijou Theatre and was originally the basement level until the street was leveled and the basement became 1st floor. Inside you will see the original bricks and wooden beams. The provides fresh, made from scratch meals. They were the first in the area to provide a “farm to table” menu featuring produce from the now owner’s small farm garden. They have three seasonal menus and we were treated to these fresh ingredients in two mouth-watering dishes.
Fried Okra with a Smoky Jalapeno Ranch
Fried Egg, Lamb, and Grits
Our fourth stop on the Knoxville Food Tours was at Dazzo’s Pizzeria. Dazzo’s is owned by the owner of Bistro at Bijou and also focuses on fresh, homemade food. They purchase their ingredients locally whenever possible and all of their sauces are made in house. I can say that they have the BEST pizza in Knoxville and the most amazing garlic knots. They have a full menu of appetizers, salads, pizzas, pastas and hero sandwiches.
Dazzo’s Famous Garlic Knots
Dazzo’s Signature Pizza: Grandma’s Pizza
With barely any room left after indulging in all the tantalizing entrees,we headed over Cruze Farm Milk Bar. Cruze Farm is a family dairy farm in Knoxville that milks and bottles its own pasteurized whole milk. They also pasteurize and bottle real churned buttermilk, light milk and chocolate milk. Their cows are in the pasture 365 days a year and never given hormones. The milk is not homogenized so the cream rises to the top. They also churn the most delicious ice cream that can be found in several local stores and at their popular food trucks. This summer the opened up the pop-up location of the Cruze Farm Milk Bar just outside of Market Square.The flavors of the ice cream were decadent and the size of the cookie chunks in the Cookies ‘n Cream was amazing. Wanting to enjoy a taste of summer, I opted for the Peach Sorbet. I couldn’t have made a better choice as each bite reminded me of the flavor you get from biting into a fresh peach.
Peachy Sorbet
The food tour lasted approximately three hours and provided so much food that no one left hungry. Knoxville Food Tours offers several different tours. Paula has tours that run in the morning, afternoon, and evening. The tours which visit different locations so if you take a morning tour one time, you would visit new places if you took an evening tour. I recommend doing a food tour if you are visiting the area or are a local that wants to enjoy a fun culinary adventure.
To learn more about the tours available and to book your food tour of Knoxville, visit Knoxville Food Tours.
Have you ever been on a Food Tour? What was your favorite feature or stop? Let us know in the comment section below.
Ive never bend on a food tour but they sure do sound like a lot of fun! I had a cousin who visited Knoxville with her husband and they loved it especially the food! This food tour sounds like it would be the best way to get a taste a little bit of everything. Hoping we get to visit with them over the holidays.
Whoa, a food tour of Knoxville sounds amazing! I have friends and family who have visited Knoxville before and have said that their food was so good! A food tour would be a great way to experience as much as possible in a short span of time. The Prohibition Potato Salad and Peachy Sorbet have my mouth watering!
It is a great way to enjoy some local favorites and get a brief history lesson. Plus because you are walking, I like to say I worked off my food. 🙂
This Knoxville Food tour is a gastronomic delight! I would love to go with my family. My sons would have the time of their lives. Those boys love to eat and to be able to sample different cuisines would be a dream come true for them. The Olive Oil’s Best friend dips from Sophie’s choice is something I would love to try! Oh and yes, the garlic knots too!
The garlic knots were amazing. I wanted to move right in so I could eat them all the time.
I LOVE Culinary tours! They are my new favorite thing no matter where we go! I have never been to Knoxville but it is on my list now – thank you for sharing =)
How cool is the map filled with pins from visitors to Knoxville. Such a great idea and so proactive. I hadn’t realized that Knoxville offered food tours. And that the visitor’s center sells local food products. Sounds like I need to take a look at Knoxville and add it to my bucket list.
I thought the map was so cool. It is neat to see how far away people have come from.
I’ve never been on a food tour but I certainly need to add that to my “Must Do” next year. This is the type of tour that my family and I would love. That pizza slice looked absolutely delicious!
Oh my goodness! You are really speaking my language here when you’re talking about food tours! My family and I love to go to food festivals and enjoy all the local fare. What really looks good to me is Grandma’s Pizza! Yummo!
The pizza was amazing. I love discovering good and think I might have a food problem.
That is a lot of pins! It sounds like you had a lot of good eats on your tour. My favorite would HAVE to be the garlic knots, they look amazingly delicious I could almost taste them!
OMG I am salivating after this post! Looks so fun!
This looks awesome! I miss food tours and food festivals. They of course have similar things in Denmark, but this born and raised American girl hasn’t quite warmed up to Scandinavian cuisine. I’d willingly devour everything you shared… except the meat ; -)
It is weird how cuisine is different from place to place. Even in the US, I have discovered that foods that were “normal” in Michigan don’t exist down in Tennessee.