Palate Passport: Taste of Little Italy

The popular, self-guided food tour goes down on June 17 in Little Italy

San Diego’s lively Little Italy community – home to dozens of restaurants – will host its annual self-guided food tour next week set to take palates on a delicious voyage.

Taste of Little Italy will go down on June 17 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. as approximately 30 unique, local eateries offer samples of popular appetizers, entrées, desserts and beverages.

Participating restaurants include 98 Bottles, Bencotto Italian Kitchen, Café Zucchero, Chef Deborah Scott’s Indigo Grill, Craft and Commerce and Pan Bon, among many others. For the full list of restaurants, plus what they're serving, click here.

Here’s how the tasty journey works: ticketholders can travel from restaurant to restaurant with their very own printed out “Taste Passport,” which lists each eatery and what each location is serving for the event. After each bite, attendees can get their passport stamped, and then it’s off to the next stop.

As attendees stroll and savor through the 48-block neighborhood, they can take in live musical performances and the charming flower and tree-lined streets.

This year, local band Latin Magic will perform at the Fir Street Piazza on Fir and India streets. Meanwhile, Spanish musician David de Alva will entertain at Beech Street and Kettner Boulevard near Pan Bon and The Moves will perform at Kettner Boulevard and Ivy Street next to Bird Rock Coffee Roasters.

The tasting tour offers three “routes” for foodies to take: a south route and north route each featuring more than a dozen restaurants. The third route combines both the south and north directions.

Tickets to a single route are $30 per person (plus a $1.50 convenience fee), while the combined routes cost $45. As of Tuesday, the combo deal was sold out online, but single route tickets were still available here. The event typically sells out, so plan ahead.

Organizers say the printed “Taste Passports” will be available to attendees one week before the event at the Taste of Little Italy office at 2210 Columbia Street from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Before pickup, call ahead: (619) 615-1092. Attendees can also grab their passports on the day of the event at a kiosk at the office, which opens at 4:30 p.m. that night.

Now, mangia! Mangia!
 

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