Our job is to tell you the stories of the people behind the food with a smile and expert knowledge. But first, get to know the faces behind Avital Food Tours. We love what we do and want to share our stories with you!

• Avital Ungar, Owner/Founder

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Boulevardier

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    From the top of Tank Hill

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Arugula

  Avital Ungar, founder and owner of Avital Tours, first became serious about the finer points of life while living in Paris and the quaint town of Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. After drinking wine at three in the afternoon as per the cultural norm and gorging her way through the countryside, Avital returned to the United States and began reading “Wine for Dummies” with the hope of adding an academic wine approach to her informal wine education. Now, years later, Avital is a certified sommelier.

  A UCLA graduate, Avital studied Art History, French and Mandarin Chinese but wishes she could have majored in Chocolate. Returning to her hometown of San Francisco after living in Shanghai working in the Chinese Contemporary art market, she began to pursue her interest in art and food professionally. She has been leading artisan food and wine tours for the past six years. She has served as a judge at the 2011 International Chocolate Salon, the Best of the West Rib Competition and and has been featured on CNN, the Travel Channel, Travel+Leisure and more.

  Want Avital to speak at your next event? Email info@avitaltours.com.

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• Anais Zuniga, Culinary Guide: North Beach

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Elderflower Collins

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Tennessee Valley

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Cauliflower pizza

  Anais makes her way back to the Bay Area (where she was born) after spending several years living in Los Angeles as an actor and creative.  Her passion for the culinary world began when started working as a server in Century City (right next to Beverly Hills), and exploring the restaurant scene of LA.  Her culinary “awakening”, as she likes to call it, took place at Pizzeria Mozza, where she had the caprese salad with pane bianco, and life was never the same after that.

  She combines her love of storytelling with 10+ years of hospitality experience into her tours, and is especially curious about what makes people come alive.  When she is not giving tours, she can be found perusing the farmer’s markets, harmonizing with the latest pop singles, or sipping on kombucha under the sun.

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• Ben, Culinary Guide: San Francisco

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Beer

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Mt. Davidson

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Greek Frozen Yogurt at Souvla

• Camille Holmes, Director of Operations, San Francisco

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Caipirinha, anything with eggwhites

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Tilden Park

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Guacamole

• Corinne Sykes, San Francisco Sales

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Anything with vegetables

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Kite Hill

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Pickled Beets

  Corinne came to San Francisco for the Balkan music scene, but stayed for the food! (Yes, there’s a Balkan music scene…) Her passion for community through music and food began with her first trip abroad, to Bulgaria. Because she had no shared language with the grandmothers she met in the village, she would sing for them… and they would answer with food. Thus began a beautiful linguistic exchange – especially if the Rakija came out!

  Upon returning to the U.S., her head was full of songs, but her stomach was empty – missing the cherry kompot, the chubritsa spice, the khinkali dumplings, the khach’ap’uri cheese bread, and all the new flavors she’d encountered.

  Attempts to recreate the magic included: buying a goat, raising chickens, keeping bees, and lots of gardening!  Ultimately Corinne sought more and more new flavors, and ventured into the vastness of the SF restaurant scene.

  She invites you to join her for a culinary adventure through some of her favorite neighborhoods, where she’ll introduce you to her favorite characters, new flavors, and the stories behind them.

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• Cecilia Phillips, Culinary Guide: North Beach, Mission District, Cocktail

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Vodka Soda with Lime

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    The Mormon Temple at Montclair

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    All Dim Sum

  Cecilia is an industry gal at heart. Having worked in restaurants for the better part of a decade and a half, she brings a unique look into the behind the scenes of eating out and the culture of the Front of House. She has done it all, having been employed  at various establishments, in a plethora of different cuisines from counter service to fine dining. She has been a hostess, busser, food runner, barback, cocktail waitress, beertendress, and a bartender, all while on the side, getting her bachelors degree, being a reporter for a major news network, hosting a weekly web series about parties and restaurant reviews and throwing cocktail competitions. It is doing food tours with Avital though, that helps her practice for her dream job of being the host of her own food television show.  You can find her in any of the neighborhoods, but her personal favorite is the cocktail experience, where she gives in depth knowledge with her years of expertise behind the bar about spirits and cocktails.

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• Jacob, Culinary Guide

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Ok, I know this sounds super sketchy but there's this guy that sells rum coconuts in Dolores Park. He cracks open a coconut in front of you and then pours rum in and they are AMAZING. Definitely my go to cocktail of the summer.

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Lookout Bar

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Souvla Frozen Yogurt with Baklava

• Kevin Longa, Culinary Guide: San Francisco

  

  Kevin Longa investigates our world’s cultures through the perspective of food and the lens of his camera. He’s done this ever since he produced his first documentary film about food corporations in high school. He’s filmed and won awards internationally in Asia, America, Africa and Europe. Currently he’s creating TASTE With Kevin Longa – a documentary series uncovering the true stories of food entrepreneurs around the world.

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• Philip Hall, Culinary Guide: North Beach, Mission District

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Barça Gintonic from Coqueta

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Top of Dolores Park

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Seafood chowder at Bar Crudo

  Philip grew up in San Diego and got his undergraduate degree in Sociology from UCLA. Post university, he spent seven years working in feature and independent film development for some of Hollywood’s biggest producers. While reading screenplays and manuscripts, writing coverage, negotiating option rights on new material, and schmoozing and pitching studio execs, he began writing his first book Memoirs of a Gaysha Punim. Before his soul turned to tar and he pulled out his last remaining patches of hair (thank god for Propecia), he took a leap of faith in himself and quit “the biz”  to move to San Francisco and run the marketing department for the largest privately held solar energy company in the US.

  While learning to survive and succeed on the “solar-coaster” that is CleanTech, he secured agency representation for his manuscript, and began writing Tightly Knit, his second book.

  After ten years of working in solar, and writing on the side, he decided to quit the renewable energy industry and go back to his original passions—storytelling and food. Today he is a professional storyteller and the founder of EatsPorkJew.com. He is a freelance writer and photographer focused on the food, beverage and tourism industries. He creatoed STEPPING OUT, a monthly food and travel column for Adelante Magazine and has contributed to various print and online publications like: Distiller Magazine, The Gayly, Echo Magazine and Solar Professional.

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• Margherita Ventura, Culinary Guide: North Beach

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Pisco Punch

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Eagle's Point

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Smoked Potatoes at Bar Tartine

  Margherita grew up in Florence, Italy, the land of olive oil, lots of wild game and Chianti wine. But it’s also the place where gelato was invented. Margherita loves sweets and even invented one of Florence’s most popular gelato flavors – wild strawberry with white chocolate and mint.

  Though it may not look like she eats much dessert from her tiny figure, she created an experiential dessert business crafting beautiful delicious sweets for weddings and events that was featured in numerous European lifestyle magazines.

  Now living in San Francisco, she’s excited to be surrounded by other chefs making amazing desserts and enjoys touring everything from traditional chocolatiers to innovative pastry masters.

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• Renee Novak, Operations Assistant and Customer Service

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Mint Julep

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Golden Gate Heights Mosaic Stairway

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Stuffed Green Pepper Soup

• Willda, Culinary Guide

  

  • Cocktail

    Cocktail of Choice:

    Key Lime Margherita

  • Lookout

    Favorite Lookout Point:

    Grizzly Peak

  • Culinary

    Current Culinary Addiction:

    Carnitas Tacos from Cantina Verde 

  Always changing her hair ‘according to her mood’, she is currently rocking the ‘blonde-y life’ right now. No one knows what color she’ll be rocking the next week!

  Perhaps a storyteller since birth -her father never lets her forget how before she could even read, she’d happily ‘tell stories’ of books just by the pictures alone! When she finally was able to read, this became her first love followed by acting and singing.

  Willda spent much of her extra-curricular life in school performing. In her college years, she performed in musicals & hosted for her university’s official radio station to name a few. After college Willda continued on taking on jobs that only further honed her love for people and performing. Inspired by trendy food videos it was also after college that Willda also finally tried her hand in cooking and baking -spoiler alert: she loves it! When she’s not trying to do a million things at once, she’s either searching up/planning the next new experience to check off the bucket list or spending quality time with the people that matter most. Willda lives by the motto: You only life once. And the Universe knows, she sure is going to make the most of this life she’s got!

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