Traveling Spoon is the creation of Aashi Vel and Steph Lawrence (shown in the photo above), who met in 2011 at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. The platform they’re building allows you to find awesome home-cooked cuisine around the world. The idea isn’t to replace takeout or delivery services, but to help travelers experience amazing local food–foraged or farmed or hunted or farmers-marketed and prepared by skilled locals.
From the “About” page on their site:
Traveling Spoon is like having a friend’s mom cook you a home cooked meal in every country you visit. Traveling Spoon connects travelers with local, vetted hosts to share the joy of a homemade meal in their home and learn about their cultural and culinary traditions passed down through generations.
Are you kidding? I do this already, but it’s a lot harder to coordinate by myself. I for one would use the shit out of this service.
They’ve raised $870,000 from investors including the former CEO of Expedia Erik Blachford, George Butterfield, First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund, the Chennai Angels and Emily and Anjan Mitra, who own the DOSA restaurants in San Francisco. Bay Area food icon Alice Waters is also an advisor.
Someone’s grinding chiles for salsa…
Sample country page on Traveling Spoon website: India.