I rarely pass up the chance to eat my way through a destination, so on a recent trip to New York with my son and sister, we spent three delicious hours on a Greenwich Village Walking and Food Tasting Tour.
During our tour with David Frasure from Nice Guy Tours, we sampled pizza and tacos on Bleecker Street, plus fries and falafel on MacDougal Street; between bites, we learned the history of one of New York’s oldest and most charming neighborhoods.
“I think of this tour as a three-act play,” Frasure said. “In act 1, we come out of the gate hot and we eat — but we cannot keep that pace for the whole time — so, for act 2, we’re just going to walk. But then in act 3, it’s back to the regularly scheduled programming, and we’ll resume eating again.”
Act 1: Arancini, Pizza and Tacos
The first stop was Faicco’s Italian Specialties. At this 126-year-old Italian market, we sampled soppressata (a type of Italian salami) and screaming-hot arancini (deep-fried cheesy rice balls), which, in true New York style, we ate on the street.
David Frasure starts the tour strong with arancini from Faicco’s Italian Specialties.
Credit: 2026 Samantha Davis-FriedmanAccording to Frasure, the delicious bites got their name because arancia means "orange" in Italian. Coupled with the suffix "-ini" for small, it translates to “little orange” — because that’s what they look like.
The second stop was the famous Bleecker Street Pizza — named best pizza in New York City by Food Network three years in a row — for a slice of the Nona Maria, a Tuscan-style pizza with fresh mozzarella, homemade marinara sauce, Parmesan and fresh basil. It’s the perfect pizza; no notes.
Right next door is the family-owned Taco Mahal, where we tried an amazing chicken tikka masala taco, a fusion of the owners’ Indian and Puerto Rican cultures with a nod to the globally inspired tacos at Texas institution Velvet Taco.
Taco Mahal’s chicken tikka masala taco is a fusion of the owners’ Indian and Puerto Rican roots.
Credit: 2026 Samantha Davis-FriedmanThe unique street taco features yogurt-marinated chicken breast cooked in a tomato-curry-cream sauce, topped with cabbage, red onions, arugula and green tomato chutney, all folded into a whole-wheat roti (an Indian flatbread). Frasure gave it a 3.5 for spiciness, but it was much higher on my personal low-spice-tolerance scale. Nevertheless, I would order it again in a heartbeat.
Act 2: Greenwich Village History and Lore
The residential neighborhood of Greenwich includes the apartment building used for exterior shots on television’s “Friends.” It’s also home to significant landmarks, including the Stonewall Inn — the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising for LGBTQ rights — and the Brown Building, which once housed the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where 146 garment workers perished in a fire.
The iconic Stonewall Inn is in the heart of Greenwich Village.
Credit: 2026 Samantha Davis-FriedmanAs we walked, Frasure pointed out plaques designating important addresses, including the Aaron Burr House (though Burr didn’t live in the current structure) and the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. We also saw 77 Bedford Street, the oldest house in Greenwich Village (dating back to 1799), and right next door, the thinnest house in Manhattan, the result of a neighbors’ quarrel.
Frasure explained that there used to be an alleyway for horse-drawn carriages, but there was a dispute between the houses on either side about who owned it. The city determined that 75 Bedford owned the alley, so in 1873, they built a “spite house.” And, since they had to give it a new address, it became 75 ½ Bedford Street.
The oldest house in Greenwich Village sits beside the thinnest house in Manhattan on Bedford Street.
Credit: 2026 Samantha Davis-FriedmanAct 3: Frites, Falafel and Dessert
By that time, we were hungry again. Luckily, it was time for fries. Pomme Frites serves one thing and one thing only: imported, double-cooked Belgian potatoes. We dipped the delicacies in a variety of sauces, from black-truffle mayo and roasted-garlic aioli to Vietnamese pineapple made with five spice, cilantro, lime juice and cinnamon and aji verde, a spicy Peruvian green sauce with cilantro, chili peppers and feta cheese.
Pomme Frites only serves Belgian-style fries — and they’ve perfected them.
Credit: 2026 Samantha Davis-FriedmanAfter consuming more than a reasonable amount of frites, we crossed the street to Mamoun’s Falafel, the oldest Middle Eastern restaurant in New York City. I consider myself a falafel aficionado, but this sandwich is the best I’ve tasted. Even my son, a self-described “falafel-hater,” loved it.
The tour culminates with sweet treats at the original “Cupcake Wars” champ Molly’s Cupcakes.
Credit: 2026 Nice Guy Tours
Since nobody should ever skip dessert, the final stop was Molly’s Cupcakes, the winner of season 1 of Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.”
“You’re not going to go wrong with any of them,” Frasure promised. “Their cake batter cupcake has cake batter filling and buttercream icing — that’s their most popular, best-selling cupcake. The cookie monster is my personal favorite, with cookie-dough filling and a baby chocolate chip cookie. But if you want the cupcake that made them famous, the winning cupcake on ‘Cupcake Wars,’ that’s the peach cobbler.”
Since we were still digesting the frites and falafel, we took our treats to go: a marble cupcake with mascarpone filling; a chocolate decadence cupcake with chocolate-mousse filling and chocolate ganache; and a chocolate sea salt caramel cupcake with dulce de leche filling, salted buttercream and chocolate and caramel drizzle.
We departed on the subway with full stomachs and a box of cupcakes. You can’t ask for more from a food tour.
"Greenwich Village is the most fun, wonderful, charming, whimsical neighborhood in all of New York City," Frasure said. "There's so much cool, awesome, fun stuff — and now you have ideas in your back pocket for maybe after the tour, maybe later tonight, maybe 10 years from now."
The Greenwich Village Walking and Food Tasting Tour is commissionable when booked through the Viator travel advisor portal. Tours are offered daily at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Private tours are also available.
