7 Italian Food & Wine Experiences Every Traveller Should Try
While each region of Italy has its own delicious and distinctive flavours, the essence of Italian cuisine is timeless.
It’s a deep respect for fresh, seasonal ingredients, simplicity in preparation, and the joy of gathering around the table to enjoy every bite and sip with gusto.
When you’re on an Exodus adventure, our expert local guides don’t just show you where to eat and drink – they share the stories behind each dish and how these time-honoured flavours have shaped Italian culture itself.
Here are seven of our favourite food and wine experiences in Italy.
1. Find Florence’s Secret Wine Windows
In Florence, even the walls have secrets. The city’s buchette del vino – tiny wine windows – emerged in the 1600s, when noble families sold their vintages straight from their palazzi to avoid taxes and reduce contact during the plague.
Forgotten for centuries, these little portals are now enjoying a renaissance revival, serving chianti to curious passersby. There are thought to be more than 150 surviving wine windows hidden across Florence today, many tucked discreetly into grand Renaissance buildings you’d otherwise walk straight past.
On our Discover Tuscany: Culture, Food & Wine trip, travellers toast to tradition at a wine window, discover Siena’s neighbourhoods, master pasta-making in Chianti, and savour Tuscany’s finest vintages against a backdrop of rolling hills and timeless towns.
Experience it on:
Discover Tuscany: Culture, Food & Wine
Join expert guides, wine makers and our welcoming hosts to explore this intoxicating region of Italy
2. Press for Prosecco in Veneto
On our Walk the Prosecco Hills & Hidden Venice adventure, travellers explore the vine-covered hills of Valdobbiadene, San Pietro di Barbozza and Santo Stefano on foot – a region widely considered the heartland of Italy’s prosecco production.
The steep hills of Valdobbiadene became a World Heritage site in 2019, recognised for centuries of traditional winemaking and dramatic terraced vineyards so steep that many grapes still have to be harvested entirely by hand.
High on the Colline del Cartizze, home to the prized Superiore di Cartizze Prosecco, you can pause at a vending machine with serious Italian flair, dispensing chilled bottles of premium fizz at the touch of a button.
Just beyond the rustic Osteria senz’Oste farmhouse, it’s the perfect excuse to stop, pop a cork and soak up sweeping vineyard views stretching across the hills.
The trip also includes exploring Venice’s quieter backstreets and canals, hiking Monte Cesen for panoramic mountain views, and wandering through hilltop villages where prosecco-making traditions remain firmly part of everyday life.
Experience it on:
Walk The Prosecco Hills & Hidden Venice
Unveil one of the world's best wine regions in Italy.
3. Mozzarella Meets Margherita in Amalfi
The Highlights of the Amalfi Coast trip is a feast for the senses.
In the hilltop village of Bomerano, you visit a traditional cheesemaker to see centuries-old techniques transform buffalo milk into the region’s iconic mozzarella.
Natural cultures and rennet are added to the milk before the curds are stretched and kneaded in hot water by hand – a satisfyingly theatrical process that gives mozzarella its signature silky texture and delicate, creamy flavour.
And the feasting doesn’t stop there. Back at your base, Hotel Due Torri, you’ll roll up your sleeves for a traditional Neapolitan pizza-making experience, learning a cherished family recipe before sitting down to enjoy the results – ideally with a sea view and a well-earned glass of wine nearby.
Between meals, there’s time to explore Amalfi’s winding alleys, cruise to Capri and walk the Path of the Gods high above the coastline.
Experience it on:
Highlights of the Amalfi Coast
Discover one of the world's most fascinating destination
4. Discover Street Eats in Sicily
Sicily’s culinary story begins in Palermo, where lively street markets have shaped the city’s food culture for centuries. Established during Arab rule in the ninth century, these bustling marketplaces introduced flavours still central to Sicilian cooking today – from citrus and spices to crispy chickpea fritters like panelle.
Today, amid the abbaniate (the theatrical cries of Palermo’s street vendors), your group winds through crowded market lanes.
Imagine stalls piled high with glistening aubergines, blood oranges, fresh swordfish and pistachio-filled pastries, stopping to sample golden arancini, thick slices of sfincione, and cannoli filled fresh to order. It’s chaotic, loud, and gloriously authentic.
Along the way, the experience continues with a cookery class in Erice, Marsala wine tastings, fresh ricotta straight from the farm near Ragusa, and Etna wine and produce tastings shaped by the volcano’s mineral-rich soil.
Experience it on:
Sicily Food & Wine
Enjoy world famous Sicilian food while visiting heritage sites
5. Roll Pasta in Puglia
Puglia’s tastiest moments unfold in a traditional masseria, where centuries-old culinary traditions are still very much part of everyday life. Here, surrounded by ancient olive groves and whitewashed farmhouses, you’ll learn to make orecchiette – the region’s famous “little ear” pasta, perfectly shaped for scooping up rich sauces and generous glugs of olive oil.
Guided by local chefs, you’ll roll, shape and pinch the pasta by hand using techniques passed down through generations. And while mastering the perfect orecchiette shape takes locals years, your group will quickly discover that enthusiasm – and a lightly flour-covered table – goes a long way.
The experience ends with a farmhouse lunch featuring fresh regional ingredients, local wines and olive oil produced from some of the oldest trees in the Mediterranean.
Along the way, there are also wine tastings in Alberobello, olive oil sampling, and visits to Matera and Lecce, where baroque architecture and long, leisurely lunches seem equally important parts of daily life.
Experience it on:
Discover Puglia: Italy's Ancient Heel
Discover Puglia's traditional farmland, coastline and Baroque cities
6. Hunt for Tuscany’s Hidden Truffles
In the forests of Tuscany, some of the region’s greatest culinary treasures lie hidden beneath the earth – and finding them is an art refined over generations.
Unlike many ingredients in Italian cooking, truffles can’t be cultivated to order. Their rarity, unpredictability and intensely earthy flavour have made them one of the country’s most sought-after delicacies for centuries – and many local hunting spots remain closely guarded family secrets.
On our Signature Italy | Allure of Renaissance Tuscany journey, travellers join a renowned truffle-hunting family and head into the woods alongside their expertly trained dog, whose nose is considerably more reliable than ours. Dogs are now favoured over pigs for truffle hunting, largely because they’re far less likely to eat the prize before anyone else gets to it.
The morning ends in the best possible way: gathered around the table for a home-cooked truffle-based lunch.
Experience it on:
Signature Italy | Allure of Renaissance Tuscany
7. Master the Art of Pesto Making in the Italian Riviera
In Liguria, pesto isn’t simply a pasta sauce – it’s a point of regional pride. On our Walks & Food of the Italian Riviera adventure, you discover why this Italian green staple tastes entirely different when made where it originated.
Inside the grand frescoed halls of the UNESCO-listed Palazzi dei Rolli, you take part in a hands-on pesto-making class.
Locals insist pesto should never be made with a blender, which heats the basil and dulls its flavour – a culinary crime in Genoa. So, you will be instructed to use a marble mortar and wooden pestle; basil leaves are slowly crushed with pine nuts, garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Pecorino and local olive oil to create the sauce’s famously delicate flavour.
Experience it on:
Walks & Food of the Italian Riviera
Stay in the Riviera’s ‘secret city’ for an adventure of glorious walks, regional food and renowned wines
