Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours has purchased the Wilmington food tour market previously owned by Culinary Adventures with Liz Biro, the company announced.

Biro, a trained chef and food writer, left Wilmington in May for Indianapolis where she accepted a position as food and dining writer for The Indianapolis Star. In addition to her contributions to many publications, Biro established her Culinary Adventures tours in 2010 in order to give both local foodies and visitors to Wilmington a taste of all that downtown has to offer.

While researching the food tour business, Biro took a couple of tours through Taste Carolina Gourmet Food Tours. Co-founders Lesley Stracks-Mullem and Joe Philipose began offering tours of Durham and Chapel Hill in March of 2009, adding Raleigh in May of 2009, and then Hillsborough, Greensboro and Winston Salem in 2011, according to Stracks-Mullem.

Since their meeting, Stracks-Mullem said, she and Biro have kept in touch via social media, and Biro contacted her this past spring to see if she would be interested in taking over the tours in Wilmington.

“I’m really grateful that she contacted me,” Stracks-Mullem said. “We are really excited and pleased to be in Wilmington.”

Taste Carolina is currently offering three Saturday tours including a morning farmers market tour and cooking class with chef Tyson Amick of Aubrianna's, a downtown afternoon tasting tour and a downtown dinner and drinks tour, Stracks-Mullem said.   

“We want to give people a great sense of the historic downtown,” she explained. “While walking from place to place we discuss history and architecture as well as some of the culinary history of the area.”

The goal of the tours is to eat and drink and talk with as many chefs and owners as possible. Chefs in particular often get tied up in the kitchen and don’t get as much of a chance to interact with their customers as they’d like, Stracks-Mullem said. Tour visits offer them the opportunity to talk with diners about what inspires them, what ingredients they’re using or maybe how they got started in the business. The tours try to facilitate personal connections whereby patrons feel a connection to the restaurants, and at the same time, the chefs get a chance to talk about their work.

“Everyone in Wilmington is really friendly and collaborative and they’re very happy to have us and be able to show off what they do,” Stracks-Mullem said.

One tour that is offered in Wilmington that differs from others throughout the state is its  farmers market tour and cooking class. While Taste Carolina offers other farmers market tours, this is the first to include a cooking class as well, according to the company's website.

“The farmers market tour really ties everything together, from farm to table and all the steps in between,” Stracks-Mullem said. “It’s really something special.”

One area of the business that Stracks-Mullem and Philipose hope to expand in Wilmington is their customized private tours. Many of their customized tours in the Triangle have been with corporate groups. They can design a tour based upon whatever a particular group needs and wants to accomplish, from team building to entertaining clients.

“We and the restaurants here are really excited about expanding that service,” Stracks-Mullem said.

She said that private tours can also be arranged for special events such as showers, birthday parties, anniversary parties or bachelor/bachelorette parties.

“All of the tours, both public and private, are very social,” Stracks-Mullem said. “People are walking together and sitting down with different people at each location. If a large group goes out to dinner, you’re stuck talking with the same three to four people all night. But if you’re going to several locations you get the opportunity to talk with many people throughout the evening.”

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