This guide is built from the live tour page of Koh Samui Food Tour on A Chef’s Tour — price, start time, group size, tastings and dietary notes come straight from the operator, never invented.

What the Koh Samui Food Tours Are

A Chef’s Tour runs small-group food walks in around 80 cities, led by cooks, chefs and local foodies, with a maximum of eight guests. On Koh Samui the walk leaves the beach resorts for Nathon, the historic port town in the island’s north-west corner, where shophouses, a night market and family kitchens serve Southern Thai food. Each tour has 14+ tastings and lasts 3.5 to 4 hours, depending on the pace of the group, with bottled water included.

There are two departures. The lunchtime tour starts at 10:30AM and the evening tour at 4:00PM. Both cost US$49 per person, and you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund.

How we wrote this: we are Joona and Alla, a family from Rovaniemi, Finland, and we research food tours for readers who travel with children. We have not taken either Koh Samui tour, so every fact comes from the operator’s pages, and we say where they are silent.

Child Prices: What a Family Pays

The child policy is the same on both tours: children aged 3–12 pay half the adult price, and infants aged 0–2 are free. At the listed US$49 per adult, our sums are:

Treat the booking page as final. Teenagers aged 13 and over are not covered by the child rate on the page, so expect the adult price.

At about US$147 for a family of four, the tour replaces a meal. We think that is fair value for children who eat rice, noodles and grilled food, and weaker value for a child who insists on plain food.

Lunchtime or Evening: Which Suits Children

Both tours are in Nathon, but the pages describe different menus and moods.

The lunchtime tour is the one we would choose for most families. It finishes in the early afternoon, leaving the rest of the day for the beach, and the page names no alcohol. The heat is the trade-off: Koh Samui is hot and humid for much of the year, so bring hats and sun cream.

The evening tour is cooler and has more theatre, with a night market and clanging woks. The page also describes a pour of chiang-chun, a botanical herbal liquor, in an old shophouse, so ask the operator what is offered to children and to non-drinkers. A 4:00PM start ends around 7:30 to 8:00PM, late for children under about six after a day in the sun.

If you are travelling with a mix of ages, one option is to send the older children on the evening tour with one parent and keep the little ones for a quiet dinner, though both tours would need to be booked separately. Another is to take the whole family on the lunchtime tour and let the older children choose a night market dinner on their own later. Either way, the tours use the same town and some of the same dishes, so there is no need to book both unless you are especially curious.

What Children Eat on the Koh Samui Routes

The pages name a lot of dishes. We have sorted them by how easy they look on paper, not from first-hand experience.

• Likely easy: boat noodles, kluay-kaek banana fritters, Samui red-sauce fried rice, chicken curry puffs, khanom jeeb dumplings, chive cakes, sugarcane juice and bua loy rice pearls in coconut milk.
• Medium: chicken banana-stalk curry, coconut shoot and shrimp soup, deep-fried fish with a salty-sweet glaze, hor mok pla fish curry custard and fish cakes with salted egg yolk.
• Adventurous: chicken laap, which the pages call a Northern Thai herb salad, deep-fried papaya salad (described as using fermented funk), khao kluk kapi shrimp-paste rice and stir-fried melindjo leaves.

That is a friendly menu for children who like rice, noodles and fried food. Several dishes are Southern Thai and may be hotter than children expect, but neither page says how spicy they are, so ask before booking if your child dislikes chilli.

Dietary Notes for Families

The two Koh Samui tours carry these lines:

The lunchtime nut line is oddly worded, and we can’t tell which tastings contain peanuts, so ask. Neither page lists gluten, lactose, eggs or vegetarian lines. A Chef’s Tour doesn’t list this, so email them at info@achefstour.com. Street-food stalls share woks and oil, and no operator can guarantee an allergen-free dish.

Practical Points With Children

Neither page gives a stop count or distance for the walk, so these notes are partly from the pages and partly from general knowledge.

• Heat: bring hats, light clothes and sun cream. Bottled water is included.
• Getting there: Nathon is on the island’s north-west coast, so allow time for a taxi from the beach resorts. Pick-up is not listed.
• Meeting point: not listed on the pages, so the details come with your booking confirmation.
• Buggies: a night market and old shophouse lanes are crowded. We would carry a baby in a carrier.
• Late finish: the evening tour ends around 7:30 to 8:00PM.

A good family pattern is breakfast at the hotel, the lunchtime tour as a late lunch, then a rest at the pool.

It also helps to prepare children. Tell them they will taste small portions at several stops, they do not have to finish anything and the guide is there to explain each dish. Pack wet wipes and a small snack for the ride back.

Is It Worth It for a Family?

For about US$147 a family of four gets a full tasting meal, a guide who explains Southern Thai cooking and a small group, in a part of the island few resort guests see. We think the lunchtime tour is good value for children who eat rice and noodles, and the evening tour is good value for older children who like a night market.

It is a weak choice for fussy eaters, for a family with a serious allergy and for anyone expecting a beach-club experience. If those apply, a resort restaurant may be the calmer choice.

For comparison, the Krabi Food Tour and the Pattaya Food Tour have the same price and child policy, and the Bangkok Food Tour is US$59.

How to Book the Koh Samui Food Tour for a Family

You book directly with A Chef’s Tour on achefstour.com, and we never take payment. Open the Koh Samui Food Tour (lunchtime) or the Koh Samui Food Tour through our link, pick a date on the live calendar, add adults and children and pay. Confirmation is instant.

• Enter children’s ages correctly: half price covers ages 3–12 and infants 0–2 are free.
• Flag diets and allergies when you book and email info@achefstour.com for anything unlisted.
• Private or larger group: contact the operator, since the standard cap is eight.

Cancellation, from the pages: you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

We are an A Chef’s Tour affiliate and earn a commission on bookings made through our links — it does not change the price you pay.

FAQ

Our Honest Final Word

Is the Koh Samui food tour with kids a good idea? For curious eaters aged about six and up, we think so: half price for ages 3–12, 14+ tastings, a maximum of eight guests and a route in Nathon that most resort guests never see. The trade-offs are plain. The pages do not say how spicy the food is, the heat can tire small children, the dietary alternatives are limited and the evening tour finishes late and mentions a herbal liquor. We haven’t taken either tour ourselves, so we send readers to them because the facts on the live pages add up.

For most families we would book the Koh Samui Food Tour (lunchtime). For older children who like a night market, the Koh Samui Food Tour has more atmosphere. On the mainland coast, the Krabi Food Tour has the same price and child policy.