Five-day tour includes two cooking classes at Chengdu's premier professional cooking school; in-depth market tours; visits to artisan producers including original Sichuan chili bean paste factory; visit to Chengdu Panda Base; all meals, sampling the vast array of Chengdu dining styles; four nights at a charming and unique boutique hotel in downtown Chengdu; all transportation; services of our local culinary director and local guide--plus a few surprises along the way!
Price: $1,450 per person, based on minimum group size of four people (maximum eight people)
Tour Details Here you'll find a taste of our offerings in Sichuan. Select from a menu of culinary and cultural experiences to suit your interests, customizable from two days to two weeks.
Cooking classes
Hands-on cooking classes at Chengdu's top professional cooking school. Our partner school is an excellent facility in downtown Chengdu that trains thousands of professional chefs. We've worked with them to design classes specifically for our travelers that cover Sichuan “little eats” as well as homestyle cooking and restaurant-style dishes adapted for home cooks.
Markets, farms and artisans
Guided visits to one of Chengdu’s most enticing wet markets, where we'll meet farmers and producers and learn to identify ingredients, and to one of its eye-popping megamarkets. On a daytrip to Pixian, we'll see how chili bean paste, the indispensable, secret ingredient of Sichuan cuisine, is made on a private tour of the original, 300-year-old artisan producer. In Pixian we'll also visit the lovely and enlightening Musueum of Sichuan Cuisine.
Meals
All meals, with lunches and dinners at Sichuan’s amazingly varied restaurants, specializing in "little eats," hotpot, peasant fare, banquet feasts, soups and noodles, ethnic Sichuan, New Sichuan and Buddhist vegetarian.
Hosts
Lotus Culinary Travel’s Sichuan tour director and guide are Sichuan natives who are eager to share their cuisine and culture with travelers. Have special requests along the way? If anyone can find it in Chengdu, they can.
City (and country) sights
Visits to the city center, the Peoples Park and its famed teahouse, the Wenshu Buddhist temple and surrounding lanes, the lively Brocade River and the Chengdu Panda Breeding Base, as well as excursions into the Sichuan countryside to see why it's known as the Land of Abundance.
Accommodations
We offer a variety of accommodations, from the Shangri-La, the city's preeminent international luxury hotel overlooking the Brocade River; to a traditional Chinese-style boutique hotel near the temple; to budget-friendly options. Alternatively, you may arrange your own hotel.
Mountain retreat
Spend a night or two at our exclusive, tourist-free retreat on a sacred Daoist mountain. At the end of a one-lane road through a landscape of both pines and palms, Golden Water is a simple but magical bamboo lodge with a clear mountain stream running through it. We'll relax amid the spectacular scenery, take walks in the country, visit the neighbors' traditional family farms and enjoy country-style home cooking and culinary workshops.
Car and driver
Private airport transfers and transportation in sedans or small vans.
Guests’ responsibility
International and domestic airfare, trip insurance, alcoholic beverages and personal expenses.
Group size
We offer small-group tours for a minimum of two people and a maximum of eight.
Dates and prices
Our Sichuan tours are available most dates on request from March through December for bookings of two or more people. Spring and fall are the ideal times to visit the Perfect Metropolis. Contact us for pricing on customized culinary immersions in Sichuan lasting from two to six nights. Prices start at $895 per person for a three-day/two-night tour. For groups of four or more, prices start at $695 per person including all services listed above.
