Telluride has both a rich history and a rich culinary scene and now visitors and locals can experience both at once with Telluride Food Tours.
Telluride Food Tours offers a two-and-a-half hour eat-your-way walking tour of Telluride that includes food and drink tastings at seven of Telluride’s eclectic restaurants. During the tour, guides talk about Telluride’s history, from its earliest days as a mining town to the early days of it’s becoming a world class ski destination. “The restaurants have been blowing the tour away,” Havard says of the culinary hotspots that make up the Telluride Food Tours.
On a recent Thursday evening tour, guests were treated to a pork rillette tostada at There…(627 W. Pacific Ave.) along with a shaken gin and grapefruit cocktail. La Marmotte (150 W. San Juan Ave.) served up a small plate of grilled sea bass with lobster, tomato and Olathe sweet corn. Locally brewed beer and juicy ribs were on the menu at Smugglers Brewpub (225 S. Pine St.). An array of beautiful dishes including king crab legs and caprese salad made with rich buffalo mozzarella cheese was served on a kitchen-side table at Allred’s (top of the gondola, St. Sophia Station). There was a special spicy elk sausage at the Appaloosa Trading Co. (129 W. Colorado Ave.) and a gigantic diver scallop served on a carrot/ginger puree at Flavor Telluride (122 S. Oak St.) with a refreshing cantaloupe, basil, cucumber, lime, and vodka drink.
While food and drink may be the main attraction for some, Havard and her team of guides spice it up with Telluride’s storied history, with support from the Telluride Historical Museum. From the ethnic neighborhoods of Telluride’s mining days to the significance of the Roma Bar and from the country’s first alternating power source to how Telluride got its name, there is plenty of history dished out along the way, some of it unknown even to longtime Telluride locals.