How EatWith works, a website that puts tourists at local tables in various cities. Our experience was in a Roman house.
By Cristiane SinaturaThe day to Barbara, an authentic Roman woman, starts with a visit to the market or fair – something she also loves to do when she is on vacation in other countries, just to get to know the local culture. + After filling the bags with fresh produce, she puts on jazz music in her kitchen and begins preparing the “banquet” that will be served that evening, in her home, to people she has never seen in her life.
And that's practically all her days – when she's not giving cooking classes, taking tours of neighborhood markets or coordinating a wine tasting. Barbara is part of EatWith, a type of social network in which residents of various cities around the world open their homes to welcome “strangers” for dinner, a cocktail or brunch. People interested in eating with locals, like locals. Next, understand how it works and check out our experience in Rome.
How does EatWith work?
O EatWith it's like a Airbnb The website, which connects people interested in a range of topics—food, culture, socialization—is a platform for sharing their homes. Whether they are professional chefs or amateurs, they register on the site and propose a menu for brunch, cocktails, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner—any activity related to food. Once approved, the host's profile is made available to the public.
Anyone who wants to participate in one of these events as a guest also registers and can search according to their interests: city, profile (singles, families, couples), type of food (typical, vegetarian,
kosher), age range and even language spoken by the host. It is possible to read reviews from other diners who have already participated, which helps with the choice criteria.
Once an event of interest is found, the guest sends a private message to the host via the website and both agree on the details directly, in a type of chat. Some hosts work with closed calendars; others allow the guest to propose the date. The amount is paid within the website (via Paypal or credit card). The “game” started with a few cities, but today there are more than 150, each with some or more hosts.
What's for dinner?
When I was in Rome, I decided to test the EatWith. Searching the website, I found more or less five events on the date I would be there. My selection criteria was the number of people who had already participated in events with that host. That's how I arrived at Barbara (bit.ly/barbararoma).
So, on the agreed day, there I was, in the rain, ringing the doorbell of a 1960s building in Trastevere, with a gift-wrapped cachaça from Minas Gerais in hand. I'm glad I decided to take a souvenir out of politeness: I didn't know, but it was my hostess's birthday. In practice, this means that her apartment was crowded: Italian friends mixed with foreign tourists, who arrived there via EatWith, like me – Americans, Singaporeans and Australians.
Priced at US$63, the menu included tomatoes stuffed with rice and spices as a starter, eggplant lasagna as a first course, chicken cooked with orange as a second course and tiramisù for dessert. Everything delicious, well seasoned, like nonna's food. Then came the liqueurs and coffee. In addition, of course, to the red and white wines that never left the glasses empty for a second, making interactions flow between people who had never seen each other in their lives. I left there at one in the morning – but Barbara and her friends were just starting to dance. All this on a Tuesday night! Oh, the Italy...
Barbara told me that her love for food and people comes from her family, traditionally butchers. Her uncles, owners of a famous Roman restaurant in the 1960s, Taverna dell'Orso, organized real banquets at the end of the year. “My initial goal is to put a big smile on my friends’ faces,” she says. “The best thing you can do is love people through food. If people love my food and my smile, they smile too. It’s a cycle of love.”
More information: www.eatwith.com
