Delicious list: these are the best cooking workshops in Italy

Oh, how we love Italian cuisine! From tried-and-tested recipes for weeknights to heartwarming ragùs for the weekend (we discovered them in the instant classic Toscanini Pasta) to pizzas for every occasion. We prefer to learn how to cook Italian food with typical regional ingredients and preparation methods from the Italians themselves, and in Italy. But where can you find the best cooking courses in Italy? You ask, we deliver!

Because it just so happens to be my dream to one day cook at Giuliano Hazan’s cooking school in one of Italy’s best wine regions. Though I’d also happily sign up for a day of making traditional Neapolitan pizza at the AVPN itself, or a professional cooking course in an Italian palazzo, if I ever dared to do that. Oh, and P.S.: all the cooking courses in this list are available in English. How convenient.

One-day cooking workshop

Cucina Lorenzo de’ Medici

One of my favorite places in Florence is the Mercato Centrale. It also happens to hide a professional kitchen with eight workstations where cooking workshops are held. You’ll learn not only how to prepare Italian dishes, but also where the products come from, how they are produced and what makes them unique. Different themes are covered every day, and they can be booked up to one day in advance. Handy for those of us who are indecisive.
Cucina Lorenzo de Medici – Florence – from €80

Scuola dell’Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana

Amazing: the official association that works tirelessly to protect the heritage of Neapolitan pizza offers cooking workshops in the epicenter of pizza, where you can learn the tricks of the trade. In four hours (daily at 10 a.m. or 4 p.m.), you’ll learn to make real Pizza Napoletana and take home a certificate to frame. Neapolitan coffee on arrival, twenty minutes of history, making traditional dough and then, like a real pizzaiolo, stretching that dough into a pizza. And, of course, tasting it at the end.
Neapolitan Pizza Maker for one day – Naples – €84 p.p.

One Day Chef Rome

Rome was cooked in a day, they say. A course dedicated to Italian and typically Roman dishes, as well as baking themes, for example. Chef Matteo Ferroni teaches in English and reveals the secrets of Italian cuisine in three hours. After that, you can head out again, because Rome wasn’t visited in one day.
One Day Chef Rome – Rome – from €60 p.p.

Congusto

A three-hour cooking course that you can schedule for a day or time that suits you. You choose from a menu: option one is Italian-style, where you learn to make pasta dough, sauces, bread or traditional carbonara, for example. More specific is the Milanese style, featuring typical Milanese dishes such as risotto alla milanese, cotoletta alla milanese and profiteroles. Finally, there is a pizza class where everything revolves around pizza. Want more? You can also take a five-month course, including an internship in a real restaurant kitchen.
Congusto – Milan – 1–2 people: €600 p.p. – 3–6 people: €250 p.p. – 6–10 people €180 p.p.

Casa Artusi

Casa Artusi is named after Pellegrino Artusi, who was born in the village of Forlimpopoli. For anyone already stumbling over that name: it isn’t far from the coastal town of Rimini. Artusi wrote the cooking bible La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene, which you’ll find in many an Italian bookcase. In a former church in the village, you’ll find a library, restaurant, museum, wine cellar, bookshop and cooking school. There, you can take private or group cooking courses tailored to your schedule and preferred theme. Options include a pasta workshop, iconic recipes or a complete Italian menu, helping you upgrade your cooking skills while also learning about products and ingredients.
Casa Artusi – Forlimpopoli (Emilia-Romagna) – price on request

Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu a Firenze

This professional cooking school in Florence also offers day courses; scroll down to the professional cooking courses further on in this article.

Cooking holiday in Italy

Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School

At Anna Tasca Lanza, you immerse yourself in Sicilian cuisine. During a four-day stay at Casa Vecchie, you take two cooking classes, enjoy three lunches, four breakfasts and dinners through which you get to know Sicily in depth. You’ll discover the island’s agricultural history, visit a cheesemaker who makes ricotta and drink local wines. Twice a year, there is also the option of a two-month stay, during which you receive lessons five days a week; accommodation, lunch and excursions are included. Finally, you can take multi-day themed workshops, such as making tomato paste under the Sicilian sun.
Anna Tasca Lanza – Vallelunga Pratameno (Sicily) – from €1,980 including a 4-day stay

Tuscany Cooking School

A cooking course that is also a wine lover’s dream (mine, in other words). In Bolgheri, birthplace of the Super Tuscans, you stay at the luxurious Poggio al Tesoro. It has a spa and swimming pool, while top wineries Sassicaia and Ornellaia are your neighbors for a week. The course is led by Giuliano Hazan and winemaker Marilisa Allegrini. You may know Hazan as the son of Marcella Hazan, also known as the godmother of Italian cuisine. He’s no slouch himself, as his list of cookbooks proves. You’ll take five cooking workshops and learn about Italy’s leading wine regions. Excursions range from truffle hunting with a tartufaio and his dogs to visiting a cheesemaker, where you’ll learn to make buffalo cheese, and an artisanal pasta maker. Lunch takes place at the better restaurants in the area. This year’s dates start on September 10 and 17.
Tuscany Cooking School – Bolgheri – approx. €6,000 including a week’s stay

Veneto Cooking School

The same two also run another cooking school, this time in the north. Here too, it’s five days of cooking, learning about wines and tasting at excellent restaurants. You stay at the incredible Villa della Torre near Verona, surrounded by Allegrini’s own vineyards. Excursions include a visit to a risotto rice producer, where the mill still operates in the same way it did in 1648. At Lake Garda, you visit a kitchen devoted entirely to fish and seafood, and in the same region you learn about local olive oil. In the neighboring region, you visit a Parmigiano Reggiano producer and taste the rare Culatello di Zibello, an air-dried ham valued even more highly than prosciutto. This year’s dates start on June 4, October 1 and October 8.
Veneto Cooking School – Veneto – approx. €6000 including a week’s stay

Culinary Institute of Bologna

Five days in the Apennine Mountains between Florence and Bologna. During the workshops, the focus is on technique and improving it at all levels, using Artusi’s famous book. Chef Stefano also takes you to cultural sites to show you where classics originated. Depending on your itinerary, you’ll attend four to five lunch sessions and take part in four dinner workshops. At a local winemaker’s, you’ll enjoy a wine tasting, with trips to markets and producers planned in between.
Culinary Institute of Bologna – from €3,500 p.p. including a five-day stay

Agriturismi with cooking workshops

You can often take cooking workshops at agriturismi, or they may have tips for courses in the region. For example, at a few of these agriturismi in Sardinia, and at Il Ghiottone in Umbria. Finally, you can read here about another cooking workshop in Puglia, more cooking workshops in Umbria, cooking classes in Sicily and cooking in Tuscany, a cooking workshop on Capri, learning to cook at Lake Garda and a cooking workshop on the Amalfi Coast.

Professional cooking course in Italy

Alma

The area around Parma is the perfect place to gain extensive knowledge of Italian cuisine. At cooking school Alma, located in the beautiful Palazzo Ducale, you can take several three-week courses. There is a pasta program, pizza course and pastry course, with or without an internship. You can also take an extensive one-year course in Italian cuisine, and the school collaborates with École Ducasse on an eight-week Italian and French pastry course.
Alma – Colorno (Emilia-Romagna) – from € 3,900

Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu a Firenze

This cooking school has been an institution in Italy for years. You can take two intensive courses in Italian cuisine: the basic course lasts fifteen weeks and the advanced version ten. You’ll learn cooking techniques, discover how a professional kitchen operates and complete a practical internship during these weeks. There is also a four-week pasta course and a thirteen-week pastry course. Finally, there are courses for amateurs, ranging from a three-hour pasta lesson to three-week summer courses. In short: explore the website, because there is something here for every kind of chef.
Scuola di Arte Culinaria Cordon Bleu a Firenze – from €110 for one cooking lesson, €3,700 for the basic course

Italian Chef Academy

A similar academy is the international Italian Chef Academy in Rome. The course training you to become a professional chef consists of four learning levels, including workshops and internships, covering the fundamentals of cooking and food safety. If you really want to become a chef, you’re promised a job interview here upon completion.
Italian Chef Academy – Rome – from €3000 for module 1 of 180 hours.

Also read:

• Olive oil in pasta water: fact or fiction?
• 10 best tips for pasta
• Mmmm! These are 10 really delicious Italian restaurants in Amsterdam

Source: Italiamo