Take A Bike Tour Of Italy With A Celebrated Boston Chef

16.04.2024 - 13:23 / forbes.com

It’s that time of year when Bostonians might see Chef Jody Adams riding her collapsible red Brompton bicycle around town to check in with her empire of seven —soon to be eight—area restaurants. The two-time James Beard Award winner says it’s a great way to zip around Boston’s notorious traffic, and even make new friends.

“Having a collapsible bike is like having a puppy,” the chef told me via email. “Everyone wants to talk about it and touch it.”

It’s a busy circuit for the chef, who serves as culinary director for A Street Hospitality, which operates five casual Saloniki Greek locations, as well as upscale spots Trade and Porto, all scattered throughout Boston and Cambridge. Her newest restaurant, La Padrona, is in the Back Bay at Raffles Boston, smack dab in the middle of that circuit, and is certainly drawing inspiration one of the chef’s other passions —cycling adventures throughout Italy. The highly anticipated spot will feature regional classics from all over Italy, interpreted using ingredients sourced from Italy and New England.

La Padrona is slated to open in May, then just a month later, the chef will be hopping on a bike in Italy for a seven-day culinary cycling tour of the Piedmont region with Tourissimo, a specialist in active travel. That trip, June 23-29, 2024, will take guests to the heart of the Langa and Roero regions, which received UNESCO World Heritage status in 2014 and are considered among the most important wine production areas in Italy.

The hills of Italy will be a welcome challenge for Adams, an avid cyclist who enjoys longer rides on her custom SEVEN Axion, sometimes pedaling south of Dorchester into the Blue Hills or west of Boston into the farming areas of Lexington, Concord, Carlisle, Acton, Littleton, and Harvard, riding loops from 30 to 90 miles. “I ride because I love it,” the chef says. “I feel like an invincible kid when I soar down hills at 25 miles an hour, singing! Of course I feel a little older as I climb back up them at eight miles an hour, but the positive payoff is stronger legs and lungs.”

All of it is excellent training for August, when Adams takes on her 14th Pan Mass Challenge – a two-day fundraising bike ride for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that travels 186 miles from Sturbridge to Provincetown. “Having the PMC as an annual goal keeps me going all year,” says the chef, who has raised more than $250,000 for the fight against cancer over the years. “My husband calls me a beast, in the nicest way. I'm grateful to have the legs to push the bike pedals that raise money for a cure for cancer.”

The trip with Tourissimo, which includes lots of wine and cheese, and accommodations including a UNESCO site, a family-owned wine estate with a royal past, and a