Seville Wine and Tapas Tour

The tour was not bad really. But it was way overpriced. Our guides were very good and nice and the food was good. Although the best place was the first and simplest bar. The fancier ones were not worth it.

Maria was a fantastic guide. A lot of great information about the Jewish Quarter and the tapa stops were outstanding. Maria was personable and very friendly.

A tapas tour is only as good as the host and Raoul was superb. He managed to negotiate his way past/through a number of processions to guide us to fantastic food with charm and patience. Very knowledgeable about Sevilla and a genuine pleasure to enjoy the evening with…

I lucked out as I was supposed to be part of a group tour but amazingly, nobody else had booked! Private tour, wow! The guide was personable, professional and refresghingly honest. She was knowledgable about the areas and tapas places that we went to together. My only negative is conparing it to a similar tour that I did in Granada, the quality of the food in the first and second locations was below what I expected for the tour price. However the 3rd and 4th locations were much much better. To improve the value for money the 1st and 2nd locations need to be changed for historic locations that also have amazing food. Overall, I would reccommend the guide, she was great. However take jnto consideration the points that I have made above.

Where to start with this? The Seville food tour however, was a disaster. I have been on at least 20 food tours (it’s one of the first things I do in most countries, and I usually travel overseas 2-3x a year when not in a pandemic) and know what they entail. The guide will give you information about the city/country you’re in, and of course describe and gush of the food. They will tell you where the wine is from, what is in the food, what it’s called, and are engaging and talk to you throughout the evening. Most food tours I have been on were led by people that could talk easily for hours, are entertaining, informative, and engaged with the group. The food has always been outstanding and a great introduction to the country/city. Every one I have been on has contacted the restaurants ahead of time, and they know we are coming. Their English is usually superb, and we are not trying to figure out what names for the food are on the tour. The Seville food tour, however, did none of those things. The restaurants had no idea we would be there that evening. The guide was often on her phone on WhatsApp or other social media. Normally I would expect a guide to be on a WhatsApp chat with the restaurant. This was obviously not the case, since at the very first stop, we had to wait for them to even find a table for us. We were then uncomfortably crammed into a corner. The guide disappeared twice at the first restaurant. The bar staff beside our table took the orders, so she couldn’t have been talking to them somewhere else. We saw her talk to them about the order. We sat alone at the table at first, and then she came back to get an order. She told us briefly about the food (not in detail, we weren’t sure what was in the sandwich like thing we were eating except that it was probably meat?). After that, she disappeared again and we ate and drank without her until we were almost done. Again, when she was at the table she was on WhatsApp and other social media about half the time. We then walked to the second place, with little information or engagement from her. At the second stop, we had some food that was awful. We ate most of it to be polite, but we have been joking about how terrible it was ever since. When we received the food, the guide said one item had hm and one had cheese, and we should guess which was which. Neither item tasted of ham or cheese. They didn’t taste like anything except a lump of sawdust. The wine that came with the meal was described only as “white”. Were the grapes for the wine local? Spanish? From Mars? We have no idea, and I am not sure the guide did either. I’ve done many food and wine tours, and not once has the guide not had any idea what we were drinking. It was so odd. During the first two stops we were also realizing that her English was not that great. She could not even talk about something things for the food and what we were doing very well. We paid a lot of money for an English guide, but she herself said her English was not that great and it is unfortunately true. My mother, who speaks some Spanish, was thankfully able to talk some with her or else we would have been even more in the dark. If no one in the group had had that ability, the tour would have been even more of a disaster. During the second stop, she was also on her phone on social media. During the walk to the third stop, she again was not very engaged and we either talked amongst ourselves or walked in silence. So atypical for a food “tour”. At the third restaurant, when we arrive she said she wanted to order some things she liked. This was another bizarre detail to me. I have only been on food tours where the food and wine were picked out ahead of time with care. From what the guide said, she was just ordering things she liked without having planned anything ahead of time. The wine at the this establishment was described as “red”. No idea where it was from, what the grapes were, or even what the wine was called. The two main dishes were described as one having salmon and avocado, and one having ox tail. The ox tail dish was on some kind of bread, with sauce, but we had no idea what was in the sauce, how the ox tail was cooked, or anything else about it. The salmon dish was on some hard bread, but again we could only guess what that was. For dessert we were told we would be having champagne. What we had was definitely not champagne. It might have been a prosecco with very little fizz, but it was dry and not sweet. There was some type of cake item for dessert that the guide never mentioned. We do not know what it was called or what was in it. Was it a typical Spanish or Seville dessert? Who knows! At this point, we were pretty convinced that she was not sure what the wines or food were, either. As it appeared she made no effort ahead of time to prepare the menu, I guess she felt that it was not important to let us know what exactly we were eating and drinking. There was zero pride in her city or her country. The guide then left when we were less than halfway through dessert. She had not said anything after mentioning the non-existent champagne, and then abruptly got up and said she was leaving. She took no more questions, had not more insights, and we sat there talking about how awful that had been. During the tour she had mentioned some things about Spanish cities that I knew were not true simply by having read a Wikipedia article about Seville and Andalucía. I could have learned more watching a 5 minute YouTube video for free about food in Seville and its history and not paid so much money.

Maria was an incredible guide. She took us to off the beaten path places, ordered us delicious food and wine and taught us a great deal about the city. She was friendly, fun and accommodating.

Maria is such a lovely person, and the tour overall and places we visited were quite interesting, trying the local cuisine. I was the solo traveler of the group, nonetheless, met and shared a great time with the group on it too.

The starting time of the tour (19:00) isn’t correct. In fact, we got a call at 1730 that the tour was starting. We skipped the tour part and went for the tapas and wine tour. Our guide brought us to 3 bars. The first we left suddenly after a 2 tapas. At the third our guide left us as soon as we arrived. She didn’t tell us anything about the tapas or wine. In total we got 5 tapas per person and 3 glasses of wine. Not worth the price.

Nice walk in Sevilla; small unknown streets; interesting information; nice food and drink; friendly and adequate guides

Excellent guide. Punctual and organized. Wonderful food and wine. Overall, a pleasant experience. Well worth the price.