Kraków food tours, vodka tastings, pierogi classes and folk-show dinners compared

💡 The Short Version: For a first food walk, book the Tipsy Polish Food Tourad by Krakow Tipsy Tours & Crawls: £30.53 to £43.61, 2½ to 3 hours, over six tastings and two or three shots, 4.8 stars from 814 reviews. For a food-only walk with no shots, Delicious Poland’s Kazimierz tourad is 3 hours and £79.05, and PLN 385 (about £75) on its own site. Secret Food Tours costs EUR 79.99 direct against £72.00 on GetYourGuide’s listing. For a cheap walk, the Street Food Walking Tourad is £33.15. Prices are GetYourGuide’s lowest “from” prices and move with the date.

The tours, tastings and classes, compared

Pound figures for złoty and euro prices are conversions and round to the nearest pound. Where GetYourGuide shows a discount, the usual price follows.

Walking food tours

Tipsy Polish Food Tour

£30.53 to £43.61 · 4.8 stars from 814 reviews · 2½ to 3 hours

Krakow: Tipsy Polish Food Tour With History, Pierogi & Shotsad is run by Krakow Tipsy Tours & Crawls, which says it is “not a pub crawl”. It lists over six tastings, among them pierogi, zapiekanka, bigos, pickled herring, a fermented pickle and smalec, a garlic pork spread, then a cherry liqueur with real fruit and two or three shots. The guide covers the Wawel, the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. The meeting point depends on the start time booked, with departures at 13:30, 14:30 and 17:30 on the listing. It is in English, for adults only, wheelchair accessible, and anyone arriving very drunk may be refused. The same company sells three pub crawls on GetYourGuide, so its four listings are one operator’s products. The usual price is £43.61, and the lower price is a 30% discount.

Street Food Walking Tour

From £33.15 · 4.8 stars from 421 reviews · 1½ to 2 hours

Krakow: Street Food Walking Tourad is run by EXCURSIONS CITY, in groups of up to 15 and in English, French, German, Italian and Russian among others. Guests are asked to arrive 10 minutes early, because latecomers cannot join and are not refunded. It is not recommended for vegans, and the two-hour option is not suitable for vegetarians, who can take the 1½-hour version. Two more listings carry the same title at £33.15 and £32.76, under CRACOW LOCAL TOURS (20 reviews) and a third operator (2 reviews); they are the same kind of walk, with the reviews split between them.

Delicious Poland: the Kazimierz food tour

From £79.05 · 4.8 stars from 165 reviews · 3 hours

Krakow: Guided Polish Food and Culture Tour with Tastingsad meets at the Three Musicians fountain on Plac Wolnica in Kazimierz and tastes soups, street food, main dishes and a dessert, with two vodkas. Delicious Poland’s own page lists 12 to 13 samples, daily at 17:00, in groups of up to 12, for PLN 385 (about £75), with free cancellation up to 24 hours before; it needs two guests to run. It cannot accommodate vegans or people with gluten or lactose intolerance, and children under 7 are not admitted (deliciouspoland.com). The GetYourGuide price is higher.

Plac Wolnica in Kazimierz. Photo: Zygmunt Put, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Secret Food Tours: Old Town and Jewish Quarter

From £72.00 · 5.0 stars from 12 reviews · 3 hours

Krakow: Old Town & Jewish Quarter Food Tour with 10 Tastingsad meets at Plac Nowy 4b, in front of a zapiekanka bar, with a guide carrying an orange umbrella. It tastes a zapiekanka, a honey vodka in an old bar, a soup in a restaurant it calls 100 years old, pierogi in a milk bar, bigos with a beer and oscypek, a smoked sheep’s cheese, with cranberry jam, ending with a doughnut and a surprise dish. The itinerary changes with the venues’ availability. Secret Food Tours’ own page lists the Kraków tour at EUR 79.99 (about £68) for six stops in groups of up to 10 (secretfoodtours.com); the GetYourGuide listing is £72.00.

Zapiekanka stalls on Plac Nowy in Kazimierz at night. Photo: Kpalion, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

BestKrakowWalks, Krawl Through Krakow and Hidden Gems

Traditional Polish Food and Drinks Tasting Tourad, by BestKrakowWalks, is from £76.56 (4.8 stars from 82 reviews, 3 hours, English): the guide takes a small group to four venues for food and vodka and talks about Polish traditions. A vegetarian tasting can be arranged on request; vegan, gluten-free and lactose-free diets cannot be. Krakow food tourad, by the pub-crawl company Krawl Through Krakow, is from £73.46 (4.9 stars from 38 reviews, 3½ hours): it meets at St Mary’s Basilica, samples 13 to 14 foods and drinks, and is not suitable for wheelchair users. Hidden Gems Food and Culture Tourad, by Tours Hidden Gems, is from £67.15 (4.6 stars from 12 reviews, 3 hours, small groups).

Vodka and beer tastings

TasteVodka: the vodka tour

From £65.90 · 4.9 stars from 229 reviews · 2¾ hours

Krakow: Vodka Tasting Tour: Tapas, Tipsy Tales & Hidden Gemsad is run by TasteVodka, which sells it on its own site from PLN 315 (about £61) with a 20% deposit. Guests taste seven vodkas chosen from more than 300 stocked across the venues, with Polish snacks and pierogi, in groups of up to 12. It starts and ends in the Old Town, at 18:00 from Monday to Saturday and at 16:00 on Sundays, and is for over-18s (tastevodka.pl). The listing asks guests not to arrive drunk.

Vodka tasting in a hidden bar

From £38.57 · 4.8 stars from 181 reviews · 1½ hours

Krakow: Vodka Tasting in a Hidden Barad, run by Lost Group, is a tasting of eight vodkas with pâté, sausage, pierogi, pickles and sheep’s cheese, in English. It meets at LostBar, Szewska 20, and is not for under-18s. It is the cheapest tasting that includes food.

Craft beer and Polish wine

Guided Craft Beer Tourad, by Your City Guides, is from £62.03 (4.1 stars from 40 reviews, 2½ hours), with beer and hotel pickup and drop-off listed. Polish Craft Beer Tour with 8 Beer Tastingsad, by Simon Sees, is from £65.45 (5.0 stars from 11 reviews, 2½ hours): it meets at the Town Hall Tower on the Main Market Square and tastes beer at three stops. Polish Wine Tasting with a Sommelierad is from £52.33 (4.8 stars from 4 reviews, 1½ hours): five Polish wines with a cheese and jamon board at Lubicz 40.

Pierogi classes

Delicious Poland’s pierogi class

From £64.60 · 4.8 stars from 45 reviews · 2 hours

Krakow Pierogi Cooking Classad is held in the restaurant Mythos at Czapskich 1, where guests fill and cook a savoury and a sweet pierogi and drink a local pairing. Delicious Poland’s own page lists it at PLN 285 (about £55) at 11:00 or 17:00, in groups of up to 12, with a glass of wine, beer or a soft drink (deliciouspoland.com). Pierogi Cooking Class with Hannaad is from £56.21 (5.0 stars from 8 reviews, 3 hours): a family recipe with mountain sheep’s cheese.

Pierogi with different fillings at a pierogi festival in Kraków. Photo: Kritzolina, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Folk-show dinners

Two dinners sell in volume. Polish Folk Show with All-You-Can-Eat Dinnerad, by Antalek Travel Group, is from £34.70 (4.5 stars from 1,882 reviews, 2½ to 3 hours): an all-you-can-eat dinner and a folk show at the Karczma Skansen Smaków in Cholerzyn, outside the city, with bus transfers from the centre depending on the option booked, or you can come by car. Folk Show & 3-Course Dinner at Jama Michalika Caféad, by Cracow Concerts, is from £38.25 (4.2 stars from 838 reviews, 1½ to 2 hours), in the city centre.

How to choose

• The most reviewed walk: the Tipsy Polish Food Tour, 814 reviews.
• The cheapest walk: the Street Food Walking Tour, from £33.15.
• Food without shots, in Kazimierz: Delicious Poland, 3 hours.
• A walk from the Main Market Square: Krawl Through Krakow starts at St Mary’s Basilica; the Old Town vodka tour starts near it.
• Vodka with food: the hidden-bar tasting for 1½ hours, or TasteVodka for 2¾.
• A cooking class: Delicious Poland’s pierogi class, PLN 285 direct.
• A dietary need: tell the operator when you book; most of these cannot cater for vegans.
• Book direct for less: Delicious Poland, Secret Food Tours and TasteVodka all print lower prices on their own sites.

For restaurants rather than a tour, where to eat in Kraków lists the Michelin tables and the daily cafés. The walks go through Kazimierz, whose synagogues and museums have their own guide. For other guided options, Kraków walking tours compares the Old Town walks, and the golf cart tours and Vistula river cruises cover the city from a seat. For the Christmas season, the Kraków Christmas market lists the market’s food stalls. To fit a tour into a trip, 3 days in Kraków and Kraków in one day are built round the bookings, what to book before you go to Kraków lists the sights that need tickets, best time to visit Kraków gives the weather by month, and where to stay in Kraków compares the areas.