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Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times

Tony Muia leading a tour on the Coney Island boardwalk.

WHEN you were a toddler, you needed someone to tell you what to taste. Cheerios, yes. Dirt, no. Electrical outlets, no way.

As an adult, you presumably don't need much help, though occasionally a sommelier comes in handy. So the idea of a food tour may seem odd: why pay someone to tell you what to eat?

In short, because it's a way to participate in, and not just observe, life in New York City. And with the right guide, it can be almost exhilarating.

Still, it's not for everyone. If you check Chowhound.com before your e-mail, can distinguish single-origin chocolate made in São Tomé from that made in Tanzania, or have 28 bottles of hot sauce sizzling in your cupboard, you're probably savvy enough to set out on your own and make the city your cafeteria. But for others — visitors, especially — the tours are well worth it.

Below are reviews of recently tested tours from five companies. They often sell out, so reservations are recommended.

What seemed doomed to be the lamest of the five, the Original Greenwich Village Food Tasting and Cultural Walking Tour run by Foods of New York, turned out to be the most entertaining. Michael Karp, one of several guides for these daily excursions, has lived in the Village for 22 years, and it shows. He knows everyone, loves pranks and off-color jokes, and points out all kinds of secret spots, from the narrow entranceways that lead to hidden houses to the best-smelling grate in town (funneling up kitchen smells from the restaurant Risotteria).

And, of course, there's food: samplings include pizza, cannoli, rice balls, fresh-from-the-oven chocolate-chip cookies and fine cheese (from Murray's, no surprise). You don't get to eat at Palma, a French-Italian restaurant, but you do get to peek into its farmhouse kitchen.

The Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour is run by an equally talented M.C., Tony Muia, who appears to have been brought to life from the pages of a 1950s pulp novel set in Brooklyn. His Chuck Taylor All-Stars, white T-shirt, tattoos and fuhgetaboudit accent are almost too good to be true.

On this tour, the only one that uses a vehicle, you eat two full sit-down meals, one each at the beginning and the end of the tour. There's Grimaldi's (again, no surprise), for a blackened, thin-crusted Neapolitan version, and L & B Spumoni Gardens for unusual Parmesan-over-sauce-over-mozzarella Sicilian slices. But the tour isn't just about pizza.

Between stops, from Dumbo to Coney Island, Mr. Muia and his DVD player work in well-polished tandem. Among other things, Mr. Muia introduces and then plays clips from films shot in Brooklyn at the moment you arrive where the scene was shot. As you drive under what is now the D line in Bensonhurst, you're watching “The French Connection” chase scene; 86th Street in Bay Ridge means John Travolta strutting his stuff in the opening of “Saturday Night Fever.”

New York Chocolate Tours runs two of the more tempting tours: the New Cuisine Chocolate Tour and a Luxury Chocolate Tour. One of the guides, Bert James, doesn't have the wackiness of Mr. Karp or Mr. Muia (a negative for the tour, but probably a boon for his social life), but he is energetic and knowledgeable.

Now, $70 seems like a lot to pay, but at each one of five stops, you'll be eating about $5 worth of chocolate. Measured in Hershey's Kisses, that would be unspeakable gluttony, but at shops like Charbonnel et Walker, at Saks Fifth Avenue, that amounts to two dainty pieces to be savored. The tours are mainly in the eastern part of Midtown and on the Upper East Side.

A different kind of tour, one that scours the city in search of ethnic foods, is put on by NoshWalks. Your guide, Myra Alperson, is neither showy nor polished; her tours feel more as if you're on a walk with a friend. There are so many tours — Bensonhurst for Turkish, Russian and Chinese food, for example, or Borough Park on a Friday as various Jewish populations, from Yemeni to Uzbek, prepare for the Sabbath — that each runs only occasionally, so plan ahead.

Finally, the New York Institute of Culinary Education offers a different kind of experience. The tours take place in one restaurant, with behind-the-scenes secrets and details revealed by the restaurant's chef or an institute instructor. On a recent tour of Hill Country, in the Flatiron District, with the executive chef Elizabeth Karmel, participants could see the wood-fired (but gas-assisted) smokers and could pepper the pit master with questions as huge briskets rotated within. One of this fall's institute offerings is a tour of Il Buco in the East Village with the chef, Ignacio Mattos, on Oct. 13.

But the institute also runs delicious-sounding food tours, led by accomplished food writers and culinary historians, into ethnic enclaves.

So if you would rather stuff yourself on the run, rather than in a chair, that might be a better choice.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Foods of New York, $40; (212) 209-3370; www.foodsofny.com.

A Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour, $65; www.bknypizza.com; reserve with Zerve, www.zerve.com; (212) 209-3370.

New York Chocolate Tours, $70; www.sweetwalks.com; reserve at www.zerve.com.

NoshWalks, $33; (212) 222-2243; www.noshwalks.com.

ICE on Location Tours, New York Institute of Culinary Education, $70 to $95; (212) 847-0770; www.iceculinary.com.