The Best Part of Travel | Inside the Business of Destination Experiences Strategies, Secrets & Sea Urchin: One Food Tour Company’s Recipe to Rapid Growth
Oct 23, 2025
Oliver Mernick-Levene and Nico Jacquart, co-founders of Secret Food Tours, share their journey from a London pub to a culinary sensation in over 100 cities. They reveal their strategies for rapid growth, emphasizing reinvestment and partnerships, and discuss how they created a bespoke tech platform to manage operations. Cautious about AI, they prioritize personalized experiences and local culture in each tour. Their secret to earning 50,000 five-star reviews? Incentivizing guides and prioritizing customer satisfaction!
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Pub Meeting Sparked Two Local Tour Styles
- Oliver and Nico met in a Shoreditch pub and launched complementary food tours in London and Paris.
- Their first tours reflected local styles: London pub/market walks and Parisian market-to-picnic shopping.
Local-Led Design Is Core To Scaling
- They learned to build each tour as a local would, not by copying a single formula.
- Localization keeps experiences authentic while the brand supplies operational structure.
Reinvest And Automate To Accelerate Growth
- Reinvest early profits aggressively to fund expansion and momentum.
- Use tech to manage operations remotely so you can scale faster with fewer managers.