The Uptown Tour
A three+ hour small group guided walking and gourmet tasting tour through the new art-forward Uptown Design District.
Experience the cool desert vibes of Palm Springs’ hip Design District on this foodie adventure, blending Mid-Century Modern style with contemporary international flavors. We’ll stroll North Palm Canyon Drive and sample elevated bites and sips from five chic bistros and iconic restaurants. On our journey we’ll uncover our celebrity history (including the juicy gossip!), meet the enterprising pioneer women who ran the town, and dive into our Desert Modern architecture, all with enough deliciousness for lunch and enough buzziness to last till Happy Hour.
Our five-star tour guide will provide a narrated tour at a relaxed pace, with lots of opportunities to sit and savor and see the sights along the way. You’ll be amazed at the remarkable transformation of North Palm Canyon Drive, from its vibrant art scene, to its high-fashion boutiques and diverse culinary offerings, with some of the best chefs in the desert.
We’ll spend three+ hours and walk about one and a quarter miles, with ample time to linger, share stories and soak up the ambiance. We’ll finish the tour by early afternoon, so you can get in some retail therapy or grab some pool-lounging time, in the great Palm Springs tradition. Here’s an example of our Uptown tour:
We’ll meet at our first stop, a charmingly authentic French cafe owned by a delightful couple from the Normandy region of France. On the menu is a cup of smooth and rich Malongo coffee (the leading fair trade, organic French coffee roaster, from Nice, since 1934) with a freshly made croissant or other petit dejeuner item.
A stroll up the street brings us to a landmark restaurant that helped establish the reputation of the Uptown Design District. We may stop in to sample the steak frites with house-made sauce or the short rib and Beecher’s Handmade Cheddar sliders and experience the sleek and sophisticated Beverly Hills vibe here.
Close by we find a small wine shop with a passionate, knowledgeable and fun owner (his business card says “Wine Thief”). The shop features small producers from around the globe, with a focus on natural and organic winemaking. We’ll sample a glass or two and have time to explore and shop the interesting and eclectic inventory.
Our fourth venue might be a restaurant with the freshest seafood (flown in daily), for a taste of Latin American and Peruvian-Japanese (yes, not a typo!) flavors or you can opt for their caramelized pork blue corn taco with a spicy honey glaze finished with pickled onions. Steak, shrimp or veg tacos are also choices. Yum!
Our group will cross the street and saunter down Palm Canyon Drive where our option for our fourth stop might instead be a newish Eastern Mediterranean restaurant, with a gorgeous interior and expansive views. The chef trained in France and worked in a Michelin starred kitchen in Denmark. Delicious mezze spreads, with warm, freshly baked pita and crudite will be ours to taste.
The tour will end at a Michelin recommended Jalisco style Mexican eatery, with a chef who began his career in the family kitchen and spent the next eighteen years cooking all over the world. We can celebrate our journey with their gorgeously presented margarita flights and fabulous dessert choices (pro tip: ice-cream sandwiches made with churros — brilliant but might be best shared!).
Our group will bid farewell, after breaking bread together, sharing table conversations and adult beverages with new friends, all while learning about this lovely little oasis of a village, awash in sunlight and thriving under the crown of the San Jacinto Mountains.
Cheers and bon appetit!
