EXPLORE: The city that never sleeps and loves to eat

For a food with only five main ingredients (flour, water, yeast, salt and barley malt syrup), the bagel has spawned a passionate following in New York. The city claims to have the world’s most bagel stores (about 450), each of which puts its own spin on this doughy classic. On a two-hour walking tour with NYC Bagel Tours, you’ll not only visit three of the best, but you’ll also learn the fascinating history of this iconic New York foodstuff. I won’t give too much away but I certainly didn’t know that the bagel was invented by Jewish bakers in Poland, that it’s boiled rather than baked and that the ubiquitous Philadelphia cream cheese it’s often paired with wasn’t invented in Philadelphia.

And, of course, you get to try lots of bagels, from savoury classics like the everything bagel with cucumber dill cream cheese to the wincingly sweet rainbow bagel with birthday cake cream cheese. Want to take your bagel obsession to the next level? Sign up for one of their bagel-baking classes. $US59 ($87); nycbageltours.com

It’s hard to imagine someone more passionate about pizza than Scott Weiner. The 42-year-old self-confessed pizza nerd is a competitive pizza judge, runs pizza-making workshops and holds the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of pizza boxes. In 2008, Weiner started Scott’s Pizza Tours and now offers several 2.5-hour pizza-tasting walking tours plus a flagship 4.5-hour Sunday bus tour that he hosts himself.

If you’ve got the time, sign up for the bus tour, which will answer every question you’ve ever had about pizza plus many that you probably haven’t (who knew the maximum moisture content of low-moisture mozzarella is 52 per cent?).

Starting in Lower Manhattan, the tour visits four pizzerias with Weiner deciding the venues enroute. You won’t know where you’re going or what you’ll be tasting but rest assured there will be a variety of styles from some of the city’s best purveyors. Along the way, you’ll learn about its history, see how it’s made and sample some outstanding slices of pie. $US85; scottspizzatours.com

The best food tours don’t just showcase great cuisine, they also teach you something about its origins. And you’d struggle to find a neighbourhood with a more varied culinary offering than Jackson Heights, Queens, an ethnic cauldron where more than 170 languages are spoken.

Turnstile Tours offers several food cart tours in New York but this is the newest and arguably most interesting – a chance to sample dishes you simply can’t find in other boroughs. The two-hour walking tour starts with a traditional Colombian cheese arepa (a cheese-topped cornmeal patty) then embarks on a gastronomic globetrot of traditional street foods, sampling a deep-fried Bengali fuchka ball, a Himalayan momo dumpling and a Mexican taco al pastor.

You’ll get to interact with the vendors, learn their backstories and appreciate the strict regulations that govern New York’s estimated 20,000 street vendors.

You’ll also be giving back with 5 per cent of the price going to the Street Vendor Project, an organisation that campaigns for street vendor rights. $US75; turnstiletours.com

Few tourists venture to Washington Heights, a vibrant neighbourhood in northern Manhattan. Bordered by Harlem to the south and Inwood to the north, it’s become a hub for Latino culture and in particular for immigrants from the Dominican Republic.

Mad Tours started running food tours here last year, offering visitors a chance to sample traditional Dominican delicacies such as shredded chicken pastelitos (a Dominican empanada), freshly squeezed sugarcane juice and colourful rainbow sorbets.

But again, it’s the insight into the neighbourhood that’s most intriguing – a loud, lively, baseball-obsessed community where Spanish is the dominant dialect and people still visit traditional botanica stores for healing herbs and spiritual guidance.

The tour culminates in another of the district’s less-heralded gems: Fort Tryon Park, an elevated 27-hectare public park that was donated to the city in 1931 by John D Rockefeller Jr. Strolling through its fragrant heather garden, amid pirouetting bees and butterflies, it’s hard to believe you’re in Manhattan at all. $US95; madtoursandevents.com

Hell’s Kitchen certainly doesn’t sound like the sort of place you’d go for pudding. Bordering the Hudson River between 34th and 59th street in west Manhattan, it earned its moniker in the late 19th century when it was a crime-ridden den of iniquity. Fast-forward 130-odd years and – like most of Manhattan – it’s been cleaned up and gentrified and is now known for its bars, bodegas and badass desserts.