Anyone can eat the pasta. Book the morning you learn to roll it.
Which Rome class lets you make the dough instead of watching it. What a Chiang Mai farm morning costs once the market walk is included. Reviews of the classes you can book, wherever you are eating this year.
Rome, Florence, Chiang Mai, Hoi An: four classes worth flying for.
Where most people start. A fettuccine and tiramisu morning off a Roman piazza, the Tuscan pasta evening with the wine, a farm kitchen north of Chiang Mai and the basket boat that ends at a Hoi An stove. What each costs, and what the people who cooked say.
- 01Rome, three dishes3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & TiramisuFettuccine, ravioli and tiramisu in one morning near Piazza Navona. The Roman class most first-timers end up in.
02Florence, with wineFlorence: Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited WineDough from scratch in a Florence kitchen, and the glass beside the board never quite empties.
03Chiang Mai, on a farmHalf-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang MaiHalf a day at an organic farm: pick the herbs, pound the curry paste, eat six dishes you cooked.
04Hoi An, by boatCooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & CookingThe wet market stall by stall, a basket boat through the palms, then a kitchen on the river.
In Italy the cooking class has quietly replaced the dinner reservation.
Rome rolls fettuccine, Florence pours while you knead, Bologna guards the sfoglia and Naples puts a peel in your hands. Four shapes of Italian morning, and what each costs before you commit to one.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · Florence: Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine
Pasta in RomeFettuccine and ravioli by hand, tiramisu while the dough rests.
With the wineA Tuscan cellar first, the kitchen second, a long table third.
Market, then kitchenShop the stalls with the cook, then cook what the stalls had.
Tiramisu in RomeMascarpone, eggs, savoiardi, coffee. One hour, repeatable at home.
All 218 Italian cooking classes →
Market morning, evening dinner class, or four of you in somebody’s kitchen?
The dish matters less than the shape of the day. A market class starts at seven and finishes as lunch. A dinner class starts at six and runs to the second bottle. A home class is a family recipe and a small table; a farm class is a minibus, a garden you pick from and a long afternoon. Choose that first, then choose what you cook.
Shop the market with the cook, then make whatever was good that morning.
The most booked kind of class here starts at a stall, not a stove. The Boqueria before the paella, a Hoi An wet market before the basket boat, the herb stands outside Chiang Mai before the curry paste. You carry the bag; they explain the pile.
Rome: three dishes before lunch, or one and a long afternoon.
Every Rome class →
The standard Roman class runs three hours in a kitchen off a piazza, teaches two pastas and a tiramisu and opens a bottle while you work. What separates them is group size, how much you actually roll, and whether lunch is the thing you just made.
Three dishes in one morning
Fettuccine and ravioli rolled by hand, tiramisu folded while the pasta rests, then the four of you sit down and eat all three. The Roman class most people book, and the one that fills first at weekends.
Same dough, with a glass in hand
A later start, a louder kitchen and bottles open from the moment the apron is tied. The version to book when the day has already been spent on ruins and you want dinner to happen sitting down.
Tiramisu, and nothing else
Mascarpone, egg, savoiardi and strong coffee, done the way a Roman bar does it. Short enough for small children to sit through, and the cheapest way into a Roman kitchen.
Six cities where the cooking class is worth an extra night.
A Roman kitchen off a piazza, a Florentine table with the Chianti open, a riverside stove in Hoi An, a riad courtyard in Marrakech, a sushi counter in Tokyo and a Bangkok stall crawl that ends over a wok. Six places to start, and the best class in each.
The best class in town is often a flat with four chairs.
A home class is smaller, slower and usually cheaper: a family kitchen above a Hoi An lane, a riad courtyard in Marrakech, a table outside Bologna where the pasta pin is older than the cook. You make what they make on a Tuesday, and you eat it where they eat it.
The cooking classes more travellers book than any others.
The full list of classes →A farm morning outside Chiang Mai, the Florence pasta-and-wine evening, the Roman three-in-one. What earns each of them the queue.
1
Half-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang Mai
Visit a Chiang Mai market, tour an organic herb garden, then cook curry paste, curry, stir-fry, soup, and spring rolls at Smile Organic Farm. Guides such as Lily, Love, K, Luna, and Cici lead small groups, with vegetarian and vegan menus available.
From · $29
Read our review →
2
Florence: Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine
from $21
3
3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & Tiramisu
from $83
4
Florence: Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine
5
Naples: Pizza-Making Workshop with Drink and Appetizer
from $39
6
Hanoi Cooking Class: Culture, Local Market & Meaning CSR Impact
from $39
7
5 Traditional Dishes Hanoi Cooking Class with Market Trip
from $35
8
Cooking Class and Lunch at a Tuscan Farmhouse with Local Market Tour from Florence
from $145
In Hoi An and Chiang Mai the class is half the reason people come.
Southeast Asia sells the whole morning: a wet market at seven, a basket boat or a songthaew out of town, then a garden kitchen where you pound your own paste and eat five courses you cooked. It is also the best-value class on earth, and it books out in high season.
Every class in Vietnam →
Japan teaches technique: sushi at the counter, ramen from the broth up.
Tokyo classes are short and precise — rice seasoned, fish cut, eight pieces rolled and eaten standing at the counter. Kyoto adds the market and the knife shops, Osaka hands you a spatula and an okonomiyaki. English-language sessions take a handful of people, so they go early.
- 1Sushi Making Tokyo Roll and Authentic Japanese Sushi Classfrom $59
- 2Tokyo: Roll and Authentic Sushi Making Class in Asakusafrom $58
- 3Ramen Cooking Class at Ramen Factory in Kyotofrom $131
What a cooking class actually costs, from Hanoi to Tuscany.
Every class on the site, grouped by the per-person price. A whole morning in a Vietnamese kitchen still costs less than a plate of pasta in Florence.
Asian market-and-kitchen mornings, home classes and the short dessert workshops.
The European standard: three hours, dough, two dishes, lunch and usually wine.
Private kitchens, chef-led farm days and the ones that run from the market through to a long dinner.
Three classes that could not be taught anywhere else.
You can learn to make pasta in forty countries. A sfoglia rolled the Bolognese way, a basket boat that fetches the herbs, and a charcoal tagine in a riad courtyard do not travel.
The Bolognese sfoglia
Bologna teaches one thing properly: a sheet of egg pasta rolled out with a metre-long pin until you can read a newspaper through it, then cut into tagliatelle the width the city insists on. The women who teach it started at six years old, they will not let a machine near the table, and they will tell you very kindly that your sheet is still too thick.
- 1Bologna: Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelato★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 775 reviews
- 2Bologna Local Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelato★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 527 reviews
- 3Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 507 reviews
The basket boat class
A Hoi An class begins in the market, where the herbs are bought by the armful, and then puts you in a round bamboo coracle that spins through the water-coconut palms to a kitchen on the river. Somewhere between the crab traps and the rice-paper station it becomes clear that the herbs matter more than the technique.
- 1Cooking Class Hoi An:Local Market, Basket Boat, Fishing & Cooking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,660 reviews
- 2Hoi An Cooking Class(Market,BasketBoat Crabfishing&Cooking Class)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,386 reviews
- 3Hoi An: Market Tour, Basket Boat Ride and Cooking Class★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,208 reviews
Tagine under an orange tree
A Marrakech home class starts in the souk with a woman who shops there every day, and ends four hours later in a courtyard as the conical lid comes off. The bread is made first because it proves while you chop, nothing is hurried, and the charcoal does most of the work while you drink mint tea.
- 1Marrakech: Moroccan Cooking Class with a Local Family★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 668 reviews
- 2Marrakech: Moroccan Cuisine Cooking Class in Local Home★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 508 reviews
- 3Fez: Souk Tour and Traditional Home Cooking Class★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 186 reviews
Four cooking classes that will not have a seat next week.
Most classes will take a booking the night before. These run one small sitting at a time, and in season the good slots are gone a fortnight out.
- 013 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & TiramisuOne kitchen, one sitting, a table that seats a handful. Weekend slots in Rome go first.
- 02Florence: Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited WineThe Florence evening class is small by design, and every hen party in Tuscany knows about it.
- 03Half-Day Thai Cooking Class at Organic Farm in Chiang MaiFarm classes collect you from the hotel in a minibus with a fixed number of seats, one departure a morning.
- 04Sushi Making Tokyo Roll and Authentic Japanese Sushi ClassCounter classes in Tokyo teach a handful of people at once and publish their English slots well ahead.
By city — wherever you are eating
By what you cook
Rome to Sicily, and what you cook at each stop.
Bologna
Naples
Sorrento
SicilyThe newest cooking class reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
A Coruña: Local Market Shopping and Cooking Workshop
Read our review →
Traditional Zanzibar Cooking Class including Spice Tour
Read our review →
Ramen Making from Scratch with Tokyo Mom(Vegan Option Available)
Read our review →
Vegan/Vegetarian Ramen and Gyoza by Bentoya cooking
Read our review →
Shibuya Tokyo: Sushi Making Class (Vegan/Vegetarian/Halal)
Read our review →
Zanzibar: Spice Farm Tour with Traditional Cooking Lesson
Read our review →
Half-Day Kuza Cave Swimming Adventure and Cooking Class
Read our review →
Ramen & Dumpling Cooking in Tokyo with Chef/Vegan possible
Read our review →
Traditional Albanian Cooking Class in Tirana with Raki Tasting
Read our review →
Thessaloniki: Greek Cooking Class, Market visit and Lunch
Read our review →
Cook & Dine With a Local Greek Family in Thessaloniki
Read our review →
5 Hours Private Cooking Classes in Langadas Thessalonikis
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Cook True Ajarian Khachapuri and Khinkali in Highlanders Style
Read our review →
NGO Lifted Strong – Traditional Tanzanian Cooking Class
Read our review →