Looking to taste your way through queer culture? From guided food tours to groundbreaking cookbooks and cant-miss culinary events, queer food spaces are thriving across the U.S. and beyond.Whether youre craving bourbon and bites in Louisville, exploring food justice, or bookmarking your next favorite cookbook, theres a world of queer food experiences waiting to be discovered. Heres a roundup of the tours, events, books and chefs putting queer food on the map.Photo: Pride PlatesPride Plates: A queer food tour of LouisvilleIf you havent heard of Louisville, Kentuckys gayborhood, let me introduce you. The Highlands is the heart of the citys queer community, lined with shops, nightclubs and restaurants. Its also home toPride Plates, a walking food tour hosted by Louisville Food Tours that highlights the citys culinary roots and the LGBTQ+ people and places shaping its food scene. One of only two queer-themed food tours in the U.S., Pride Plates has collaborated with groups like Queer Kentucky, the LGBTQ+ archives at the University of Louisville, and local community members. The $159 tour includes a sampling of Kentuckys famous bourbon cocktails or mocktails.Queer Food FoundationThe Queer Food Foundation, or QFF, was founded in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 quarantine to meet the food-related needs of the queer community. Since then, the group has grown and raised more than $30,000 for queer-focused programming and $50,000 to combat food insecurity in the Black queer and trans communities. Its Queer All Year program partners with the James Beard Foundation to host virtual food education panels.Queer Food ConferenceAfter a successful inaugural event in 2024, the Queer Food Conference is back May 1-3, 2026. Taking place in Montreal, Quebec, the conference brings together food industry professionals, academics, foodies and more for panels and workshops on topics like LGBTQ+ cookbooks, farming and land movements, potlucks, food advertising, restaurant management, catering, brewing, food writing and community building.The book Queers at the Table: An Illustrated Guide to Queer Food, inspired by the 2024 event and edited by organizers Alex D. Ketchum, PhD, and Megan J. Elias, will be released in October and is available for pre-order now.The world-traveling television personality, restaurant owner and host of Top Chef, Kristin Kish has come out with a memoir all about her adventurous life. Kish shares stories from her early days as an adoptee from South Korea living in the Midwest, to coming out as queer, to becoming an internationally recognized culinary figure.Chef Karen Akunowicz. Photo: Countryman PressCrave: Bold Recipes That Make You Want Seconds by Chef Karen AkunowiczChef Karen Akunowicz is a James Beard Award-winning chef and mainstay on cooking competition shows like Bravos Top Chef and Food Networks Tournament of Champions. Her Boston-based restaurant Fox & the Knife serves up Northern Italian fare and the queer chef even sells her own line of artisanal food products like olive oil and pasta kits. Her 2021 cookbook Crave: Bold Recipes That Make You Want Seconds exemplifies her style of cooking with big flavors and rustic charm.Chef Kristen Kish. Photo: Hachette Book GroupAccidentally on Purpose by Chef Kristen KishThe world-traveling television personality, restaurant owner and host of Top Chef, Kristen Kish has come out with a memoir all about her adventurous life. Kish shares stories from her early days as an adoptee from South Korea living in the Midwest, to coming out as queer, to becoming an internationally recognized culinary figure.Susan Feniger: ForkedPioneering chef Susan Feniger is probably best known as one of the Food Networks original stars, alongside business partner Mary Sue Milliken in Two Hot Tamales. However, Feniger has been making waves in California cuisine since the early 80s. In Forked, director (and Fenigers life partner) Liz Lachman explores Fenigers early career, TV stardom and struggles as she tries to open her first new restaurant without Milliken in 2009. The film combines footage that Lachlan has collected over the years as well as archival images and interviews with Feniger, Milliken and more.The PieCaken. Photo: GoldbellyThe Original PieCaken by Chef Zac YoungFans of Food Networks Halloween Baking Championship or Best Thing I Ever Ate will know pastry Chef Zac Young from his thoughtful and playful feedback. But did you know that Young created the PieCaken? Inspired by the TurDucken (a chicken stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey), the PieCaken is a decadent dessert with layers of pecan pie on the bottom, pumpkin pie in the middle, and spice cake on top, covered with cinnamon buttercream and finished with apple pie filling. Through Goldbelly, Young offers the PieCaken, which can be shipped directly to your home for any special occasion.Who is your favorite LGBTQ+ chef? Let us know at newsisout@localmedia.org.The post Your queer foodie guide: LGBTQ+ chefs, books, tours and events to know appeared first on News Is Out.