The Europe Food and Wine Packing Guide
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When I lived in Charleston, South Carolina, I wrote for the Charleston City Paper, a popular alt-weekly newspaper. I started out in the party pages, writing recaps of various events, parties, and galas in town, and gradually moved up to writing restaurant reviews and contributing to food-focused features. Ten years ago, Charleston was ascendant as a food and wine city, and many of the goings-on that I covered had a culinary angle to them.
I learned so much about gastronomy and wine while pretty much hanging out and going to parties.
And I’ve realized that no matter where you travel, local food and drink is an unparalleled lens through which to experience a new culture. I’ve already written about the essentials to pack for a trip to Europe, but below I’ve compiled a more specialized list for those lucky enough to be embarking on popular culinary experiences during their next trip to Europe.
What to Pack for a Cooking Class and Food Market Tour
Cooking classes are one of my favorite types of travel experiences. I recommend them to everyone. A lot of folks will skip a cooking class because they don’t consider themselves all that talented in the kitchen. Others will opt out because they think that a cooking class will be dry and topic-focused like a museum tour.
Cooking classes are much more immersive, though.
Barcelona’s Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, widely known as La Boqueria, is one of the best known food markets in Europe.
They belong to a category I call connection experiences, because of the way that they connect you with people from the culture and place you are visiting. The food is what gets you in the door, and the wine is what opens everybody up, and by the end of the night you’re swapping stories with other guests, learning about the personal history of your cooking instructor, and collecting super insider tips about the city from an established resident.
No trip to Italy is complete without a pasta cooking class.
Contrary to joining a professional culinary program, you really don’t need to pack much for a cooking class. Hosts will provide you with an apron and the tools needed to create your meal. But you should keep a few things in mind when packing for a cooking class, and its frequent companion experience, a food market tour.
First, keep in mind that professional kitchens forbid open toed shoes of any kind. While your instructor is unlikely to be as strict, this is a common practice you should try to observe. Wear closed toed shoes like tennis shoes or sneakers. As an added bonus, this kind of footwear is more comfortable should you end up walking through a food market or for several hours of standing.
Second, aprons are never foolproof, so avoid wearing whites or light colors, lest a drop of wine or tomato sauce splash onto them. If you’re traveling in the summer, linen clothing is a great choice as it’s more lightweight and breathable on hot days, and in hot kitchens.
I created this downloadable ⬇️ Packing Checklist ⬇️ that you can snag right now.
It helps you plan what you’ll pack, and then keeps you organized as you cross things off once they’ve been packed.
What to Pack for a Vineyard Tour
Vineyard tours are an unbeatable way to improve your wine knowledge. They also stay with you in the most charming way - even years after you’ve walked through the vineyards of a particular region, you’ll smile every time you see it featured on a wine list. And you’ll learn about the varietals that come from that region, and how they stack up to other popular regions. After a wine tour through Alsace, I came to prefer Cremant d’Alsace, a dazzling sparkling wine, over the more well-known Champagne, Prosecco, or Cava.
The best vineyard tours *always* include a wine tasting.
Vineyard tours are part of a category I call discovery experiences, for their ability to introduce and educate you on a particular topic. They are part geographical tour, introducing you to a region’s terroir, or the environmental factors that influence a wine’s characteristics, and part history tour, recounting how that region became known for its wine production, and the political and economic factors that made it competitive.
The best vineyard tours include a wine tasting, either in the fields or after a tour of the vines and the cellar. Remember to wear sturdy footwear for your time touring the vines, as well as sunscreen and bug repellent. Best method for capturing all of your newfound wine knowledge? With Wine Folly’s wine tasting journal. The pocket-sized diary features guided tasting notes using a sommelier-approved 4-step tasting method, and includes space to review 80 wines.
When you find the perfect bottle of vino to take home with you, these travel wine bags will provide padding to protect bottles during transport, while its leak proof construction will also protect everything else traveling in your checked luggage in the event of a bottle break. (Serious oenophiles can even bring a dedicated wine suitcase with space to take 12 bottles back home on the plane.) I also love this two bottle insulated wine tote, especially for enjoying chilled white wines later in the day.
(Psst! I’ve written a round up of the best food and wine destination in Europe which you can read here.)
What to Pack for Dinner at a Michelin Star Restaurant
While the Michelin Guide highlights the best restaurants in Europe, its highest accolade of three stars can transform a restaurant into a must-visit destination in its own right. (The same goes for eateries on the equally prestigious The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.) Fine dining is a great match for those interested in haute gastronomy, sure, but the reverence for local ingredients and traditional culinary techniques imbues fine dining with a healthy amount of cultural context.
The Michelin Guide was created in 1900 to drum up demand for automobile travel.
Date night casual or cocktail attire is usually the right level of formality for fine dining outfits. You should look polished, but not too formal. If in doubt, email the restaurant before your trip and ask what they would suggest for attire. I also recommend doing a “vibe check” on Instagram: search for the restaurant location, and look at photos from folks that have tagged the restaurant in their post. You’ll see a lot of #myphoneeatsfirst plate pictures, but likely a few snaps of patrons, and more importantly, what they’re wearing. I love this pocket-sized restaurant journal for organizing your fine dining bucket list and jotting down tasting notes and impressions of three-star meals. It’s just a little more refined than snapping pictures of each course.
Fine dining often includes multi-course tasting menus with exquisite ingredients and unusual techniques.
Last, but certainly not least…
Food and wine impacts all of us differently, and travel can often complicate our responses to different ingredients. Personally, the combination of traveler’s stress, dehydration from flying, and overindulgence has a tendency to wreak havoc on my digestive system.
If you ever find yourself reaching for a bottle of Tums or Pepto Bismol after a big meal, consider packing these on your trip. European pharmacies have different brand names for common over-the-counter medications, and some countries rely on homeopathic remedies that contain more herbs than medication. Pack your favorites to ensure the greatest relief. 🖤