Taking a cooking class in Tuscany is a fun way to experience the region’s food and culture. Courses range from half-day classes to week long programs. Most classes combine instruction with hands-on experience so you learn about Tuscan food and get to experience making it yourself. Lunch or dinner, made with the dishes you’ve helped prepare, is served after the class, usually including wine.
5 Recommended Places to Cook in Tuscany:
Food Artisans
Cookbook author Pamela Sheldon Johns, a former cooking school director, has lived in Italy for many years and is the author of 16 cookbooks. She teaches cooking classes in her gourmet kitchen on her agriturismo, Poggio Etrusco, near Montepulciano. Pamela is an excellent teacher and really gets the students involved in the class with a good combination of fun and learning. Poggio Etrusco is a beautiful setting and of course the food is delicious!
Pamela offers morning classes followed by lunch, week long culinary workshops, culinary vacations with cooking classes in other parts of Italy such as Piemonte (with truffle hunting) and Cinque Terre, and an opportunity to join the olive harvest.
- Websites: Food Artisans and Poggio Etrusco
Tuscan Women Cook
The week long program with Tuscan Women Cook includes 4 different cooking experiences with local women ranging from a self-taught chef in a Michelin starred restaurant to cooking on a farm. Students have hands-on experiences that include making pici, the local pasta, as well as other types of pasta and traditional Tuscan dishes. Students stay at La Chiusa Hotel, a historic hotel just a short walk from the center of Montefollonico, a small Tuscan hill town that’s not on the usual tourist itinerary. Also included in the program are visits to local wine and food producers, excursions to other towns in Tuscany, and wonderful meals.
- Read my review of Tuscan Women Cook or visit their website
Divina Cucina
Join Judy Witts Francini for a market to table cooking class in the Tuscan hill town of Certaldo, for a market tour, in Florence, or for a Divine Day custom program. Judy also offers Kitchens of Chianti and Secrets of My Sicilian Kitchen, both week long programs for food and wine lovers with cooking classes and excursions. Judy has lived in Tuscany for 30 years, taught cooking during most of that time, and started the first one-day cooking program in Italy. She also wrote a cookbook, Secrets from my Tuscan Kitchen, and the Taste Chianti app.
- Website: Divina Cucina
Tuscany Cooking Class and Dinner in Florence
If you’re in Florence, take a cooking class in a historic palazzo right in the city center. You’ll make and eat a 4-course dinner accompanied by Tuscan wine.
Florence Market Tour and Cooking Class with Lunch in a Farmhouse
Start with a market tour in Florence, then be transported to the Tuscan countryside for a cooking class and lunch with Chianti wine in this full day tour.
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