Tour of culinary delights

Newport Food Tours is described as a “progressive dining experience” by the owners, husband-and-wife team Marie Larsen Mechtaly and Mehdi Mechtaly. The tour is an up-close and personal one, encompassing just one of Newport’s restaurant rows, the emerging Broadway neighborhood.

Marie has been working in restaurants since high school in Copenhagen. Her experience took her to France and eventually to Rhode Island, where she met Mehdi, who is a mixologist by trade. He had just taken a new job in Miami and as the couple said, “we decided to embark upon a new adventure.”

She took a job as an epicurean guide. After a couple of years, they came back to Rhode Island – “our adopted home” – moved to Newport and started giving walking dining tours. The Newport Food Tours business the couple founded is not drastically different from those early tours.

The group, usually joining the tour as couples and comprising up to 14 people, starts at 5 p.m. on Broadway at one of the up-and-coming venues, such as Caleb and Broad or Fifth Element. The evening consists of visits to four restaurants, each serving one course. Included are two beverages. Local wines and craft beers are featured. Gratuities for the restaurant are included in the $72 price.

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The menus vary nightly and with the season. Recently, the Broadway restaurants offered local mussels in a broth of wheat beer, orange cream, fennel, garlic and tomatoes; housemade shrimp dumplings with lemon horseradish Hollandaise and a craft beer at Caleb & Broad; eggplant with ricotta and meatball or pork with apricot siriracha BBQ sauce at Malt; carne a la placha – chuck eye cut with roasted pepper jalapeno relish and seasonal vegetables at Tavern on Broadway, where the wine is a hard-to-come-by Landot noir, a Bordeaux-style red from Newport Vineyards; ramen – yes, ramen – a spicy cashew version with local bean sprouts, kale, radish and sesame paired with a dry Riesling wine, also from Newport Vineyards at Boru Noodle Bar.

Other stops on other nights may include the mainstay Norey’s, the new Mission Burger or brand-new Binge BBQ serving brisket, collard greens, mac and cheese croquette and fried apple pie, paired with Newport Storm Hefeweizen summer ale.

The timing is critical. Tours begin at 5 p.m. on the dot. The duration is two hours, although they may linger depending on the group and how long a restaurant visit may last.

The Mechtalys insist on an early night, with two factors in mind. After the tour is finished, the attendees have enjoyed a complete dinner and the rest of the evening is still ahead to take in the best of Newport.

Also, the restaurants get an extra turn of the table, which the proprietors appreciate. The couple is able to, thanks to their cultural backgrounds, offer custom food tours in French, Arabic and Danish/Scandinavian (Mehdi is from Morocco). Private tours are also available. The tours run rain or shine.

Tourism in general is one of the real success stories of the state’s economy. Culinary tourism is a specialized area that not all tourism hotspots excel at. While it is not as widely reported, it is another sign of the vibrant new economy our leaders could be touting in “The Biggest Little State in the Union.” •

Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out radio show is heard on 1540 WADK-AM, wadk.com and the TuneIn mobile application. He can be reached by email at bruce@brucenewbury.com.

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