Bari Food Tours & Orecchiette Classes
Bari Vecchia is the only old town in Italy where the pasta is made in the street: the women of Arco Basso roll orecchiette on tables outside their doors, and around them are focaccia bakeries, panzerotti fryers and fishermen selling raw seafood on the quay. Compare the top-rated food tours and classes below, then read our notes.
Street food and pasta tours in Bari Vecchia
Cooking classes in Bari
Formats: street food walks through Bari Vecchia with focaccia, panzerotti, sgagliozze and raw seafood; pasta-experience walks that end at the orecchiette tables; cooking classes with focaccia and orecchiette or pasta and tiramisù; bike tours with tastings.
What you will taste: focaccia barese from the famous bakery, panzerotti, sgagliozze fried polenta, raw octopus and sea urchin at the harbour, orecchiette, taralli, a Primitivo, and a caffè leccese with almond milk.
Price and time: roughly 50 to 75 dollars for two and a half to three hours.
Bari Vecchia on foot
The old town is a maze on a headland between two harbours, and its food is street food: focaccia by the slice from bakeries that have queued since morning, panzerotti fried to order, sgagliozze, the polenta squares fried in a pan in a doorway, and at the fishing harbour raw octopus, cuttlefish and sea urchin eaten standing up with a beer. Food tours cover all of it in two and a half hours with a local guide and end, usually, at Arco Basso, the “street of orecchiette”, where the pasta ladies work at tables outside their doors and sell by the bag.
A note on the pasta ladies
Arco Basso is genuine and also famous, and fame has brought problems: in 2025 prosecutors investigated pasta sold there as handmade that was not. Buy from a woman who is actually shaping it in front of you, or better, make your own in a class.
Cooking classes in Bari
Two formats: focaccia barese and orecchiette, which is the Bari menu, or pasta and tiramisù with wine, the Italian standard, both in small groups in or near the centre. Chef-led classes add gelato. For the farm version, see Puglia cooking classes.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bari worth visiting for food?
Very much: it has the most distinctive street food in southern Italy and the only street where pasta is made in public.
Is raw seafood in Bari safe?
Locals eat it daily from the harbour stalls; tours use vendors they know. Skip it if you are cautious; there is plenty else.
Bari or Lecce as a base?
Bari for the airport, the trains and the street food; Lecce for the baroque and the Salento wines. They are an hour and a half apart by train. See Lecce.
Read next: Orecchiette in Puglia: the pasta, the street and the class
How we choose
We list only experiences with a strong rating over a meaningful number of reviews and free cancellation where available, and we favour small-group and family-run hosts. FindEatLocal earns a commission when you book through GetYourGuide or Viator links on this page; it doesn’t change the price you pay. More about how we choose.