So what do you do when you’re new in town, have a background in the food industry, and are passionate about extraordinary dining experiences? You make it a point to try as many local restaurants as you can so that eventually, you can share those restaurants with as many people as possible.

That’s exactly what Angela Shen did when she moved to Seattle. In July 2007, she started Savor Seattle Food Tours with the Pike Place Market tour. Just a few weeks ago, she opened a new tour – the Downtown Seattle tour. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a Downtown Seattle Mini-Tour just the other day and I have to say that those two hours were among the happiest my taste buds have spent recently.

Full details after the jump, but for now, I’ll tease you with a shot of the delicious pizza our group shared at Serious Pie.

We started the tour in the upper lobby of the Mayflower Park Hotel. The Mayflower Hotel is the site of the first daylight bar in Seattle, Olivers. If you’re looking for a classic martini, Olivers is your place.

From there, we entered our first restaurant – Andaluca. A lovely table was set just for our little group and glasses of their special, secret Sangria were poured all around. Executive Chef Wayne A. Johnson was quick to appear and spent a few minutes with us. He has an interesting philosophy. He believes that chefs should master the techniques, rather than cuisines. If you know how to saute, or grill, or sear, then you will be able to saute, grill, or sear any type of cuisine. Flavors can be experimented with, techniques are less forgiving. This is a philosophy I will be soon practicing in my own cooking endeavors.

We were treated to a seared halibut skewer with roasted tomato beurre blanc. Andaluca has recently overhauled their entire menu after Chef Wayne took a trip to Spain. He was intrigued by the idea of Pintxos and the vast majority of their menu now contains Pintxos. Choose two or three as a meal or order several to share and then choose from one of their large plates for dinner.

Next we started the walking portion of the tour. Up and over and around and soon we were at Serious Pie, Tom Douglas’ newest restaurant. Serious Pie produces an amazing pizza, in part because of their dough. They use a wetter dough, with more yeast, very much like a foccacia dough. It is cooked between 680 and 700 degrees in their pizza oven. Many of the toppings are not even added until the pizza is halfway done. Serious Pie believes that cheese makers do not spend all of their time making cheese for restaurants to cook the heck out of it. They strive to only melt the cheese, not cook it.

After our group munched on several slices of pie, it was time for a slightly longer walk down to Pike Place Market. Angela regaled us with history the entire time we walked. Even locals will find her engaging and passionate about Seattle.

Next we walked past the fish mongers and to Place Pigalle Restaurant. Seth and Lluvia Walker, the owners, spent a few minutes with us and served us Steamed Mussels Pigalle. I’ve never met a mussel I liked until this dish. The mussels are served with a vinaigrette of bacon, celery, shallots, and balsamic vinegar. I ate every bite and used the slice of toast to sop up every ounce of the sauce. They explained that seafood in Seattle tastes different (and in their opinion better) than seafood anywhere else because the amount of fresh water runoff from the mountains we have affects the salinity of our coastal waters.

Our last stop on this mini-tour was Gelatiamo. Of all of the places we visited, this was by far my favorite. Why? Well, because the owner, Maria Coassin, was so very passionate about what she does every day. She comes from a family of bakers, but she didn’t want to get up at 3 am to bake bread, so now she gets up at 5 am to make gelato. All of her gelato is made fresh daily. It isn’t hard to make gelato, according to Maria. What is hard is coming up with the recipes to make good gelato. Maria is a scientist as well as a chef. For every gelato flavor she creates, she must be sure that the ingredients form a perfect equilibrium with solids and liquids, fats and non-fats. Gelato actually has less milkfat than ice cream, yet you would never know it given the richness of her creations. We sampled a lemon gelato and a hazelnut gelato. Maria was a joy to listen to and you can really see how much pride and investment she puts into every day at Gelatiamo.

If I’ve tempted you at all, you can take the full, 3 hour tour for $65. It includes stops at 5 additional locations and you will definitely end up with enough food for a very full meal. The tours run Wednesday-Saturday from 2pm-5pm and there is plenty of alcohol involved (though you’ll need to be 21 to partake of that part of the tour).

Savor Seattle Food Tours
1-888-98-SAVOR (72867)
www.savorseattletours.com