A Bristol tour company offering clients the chance to sample gourmet delights from top restaurants around the city is helping to boost the local independent food scene.
Having started with a single three-hour Wapping Wharf tour last year, Food Tours of Bristol has since added two more that highlight the city’s growing food scene – with two of the venues holding Michelin Bib Gourmand accreditation.
Now founder Miguel Alzugaray, pictured, plans to employ two more tour guides next spring to help him gradually expand into other areas of Bristol.
Miguel cut his teeth in the hospitality industry in Canada, where he ran similar tours in the laid-back, foodie city of Vancouver.
Arriving in Bristol with his British-born wife Hannah just before the pandemic proved a tough introduction to a new country.
But he found a number of jobs, including working as a restaurant manager at Bertha’s Pizza on the Harbourside.
This role proved a fantastic introduction to the developing Wapping Wharf food scene as Miguel soon got to know the chefs in the nearby restaurants.
He started to swap one of the two free meals he received during his shifts at Bertha’s with staff in the other eateries – allowing him to discover the different types of food on offer.
“I started to envisage what a food tour would be like,” says Miguel. “Ideally, I wanted to offer a seven-course ‘tasting menu’, with each course at a different venue – starting with a drink, then fish, then meat, and – fun is a part of it – two desserts!
“I want to be an ambassador for hospitality – knowing how difficult it is for the independents.”
This initial ‘seven-stop gourmet food tour’ proved successful, allowing Miguel to add a street food tour plus another that includes the best restaurants on Southville’s North Street.
The aim is to introduce participants to best that Bristol can offer and – and knowing the chefs and their own individual stories, means he is able to entertain guests on his tours.
Having started his career in hospitality at the age of 16, he says it humbling to find he was starting over again in Bristol at 32.”
Back in Vancouver he’d had a well-respected track record in hospitality – quite literally, having spent two years working on the famous Rocky Mountaineer railway, which takes tourists across the mountains in British Columbia, in his words “serving food and telling stories”.
Then came an interview with Vancouver Foodie Tours, where he beat 300 other applicants to bag one of just four jobs on offer.
Here he learned a lot, spending two years taking food tours around the city’s lively Gastown area, known for its Victorian buildings and indie art galleries.
Then came the move to the UK and something of a wake-up call.
While his whole working life had been spent in hospitality, he had never – until then – really considered his long-time career.
Drawing on his experience in Vancouver, the idea for Bristol’s Good Food Tours was born.
“The hospitality sector in Bristol is quite small – so I was able to reach out to friends,” he said.
He found it much easier to expand into North Street for his next tour, thanks to good recommendations from his partners at Wapping Wharf.
His great contacts in Bristol’s food scene means he can also create unique offerings – Clifton Seafood on Wapping Wharf actually provides a seafood platter specifically for him, bringing a ‘behind the scenes’ aspect to the tour.
One of the dessert stops at Wapping Wharf is Box-E – which has a Michelin Bib Gourmand recommendation – as does Cor, a stop on his North Street tour.
Miguel has been asked to take on individual bespoke tours for clients – and being fluent in French and Spanish certainly helps promote Bristol’s vibrant food scene to an international clientele.
“My passion is wanting to introduce people to restaurants and wanting them to feel like a regular,” he says.
For more information on Miguel’s tours, visit: Food Tours of Bristol
