Be An Italian Chef For The Day!
Cooking Classes, Market Tours & Food Lover’s Walks
I can tailor make any 1, 2, 3 or more day Cooking Vacations’ program for a single or group. If you would like a 1 day or an extended week, please call Lauren at 1.800.916.1152 or 1.617.247.4112, in Italy at +39 339.604.29.33 or email at info@cooking-vacations.com.
Neapolitan Cooking In Positano
Traditional Southern Italian Menu
Join Chefs Salvatore, Francesco and Raffaele as they team up in the kitchen for an authentic hands-on cooking course in Neapolitan cooking. Learn about the treasures of this region’s cooking style using local fresh organic fish, meat, fruits and vegetables of the Amalfi Coast. Neapolitan cooking is a classic, and this class gives you its history over time. Cook traditional Neapolitan foods, while you learn how the tomato made its way into Italian cooking, and where and when pasta was first invented. Join us for an authentic, fun-filled class and learn how to make a selection of seasonal recipes such as Pezzogna all’Acqua Pazza, fresh local white fish slow-cooked with herbs, potatoes and sweet cherry tomatoes; Linguine Con Gamberetti & Fiori di Zucca, fresh bright orange squash flowers sautéed with pink baby shrimp served with linguine; Boscaiola, Neapolitan pasta with mushrooms, Tonno, fresh local tuna simmered with capers & olives; Manzo Con Foglie di Limone, filet of beef layered with lemon leaves on a skewer; Involtini Di Melanzane, stuffed eggplant rolls; or Tiramisu’ al Limone, our Chef’s signature dessert using local Amalfi lemons.
The cooking class is hosted in our professional kitchen set in Positano, in the seaside village set on the Amalfi coast. This cooking class focuses on the healthy Mediterranean diet, using our own 100% Extra Virgin, first-cold-pressed, Olive Oil. The warm Mediterranean climate, fertile volcanic soil and sea breeze provide the perfect conditions for healthy abundant produce in southern Italy.
Tie on your apron and get cooking for Neapolitan Cooking in Positano with old-world recipes & new techniques including the preparation of an antipasto, first course (such as pasta or risotto), second course and dessert. After your class enjoy the wonderful lunch or dinner prepared in class. Toast with a great glass of Aglianico, red, or Falanghina, white, wine and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Program Price: $195 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Morning Classes start at 10am & Afternoon Classes start at 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Cooking Lemon Lifestyles™
In Positano
Cooking With Lemons
Join our team of Chefs in Positano for a lemon-infused cooking class using the sweet Positano lemons famous on the Amalfi Coast.
An informal discussion on the secrets of cooking with lemons is provided. Our Chefs will take you through a hands-on class featuring recipes from our Lemon Lifestyle program, with an accent on the healthy Mediterranean diet. Our professional kitchen is a magical workplace as our chefs show you how to use lemons in the most delicate and creative ways.
Save your appetite and get cooking in this unique & informative cooking class, which includes facts on the history of lemons and their use, along with our Chefs’ traditional techniques and tricks of the kitchen. After your lesson, enjoy your lunch or dinner with the foods prepared in class. Toast with a great glass of Aglianico, red or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Lemon Lifestyle Menu™
This class features our Lemon Lifestyle menu, using the bright yellow organic Positano lemons that grow on the Amalfi Coast. Learn how to make a lemon-inspired menu including an array of fresh vegetables drizzled with lemon oil or a lemon infused antipasto; pasta served with a delicate lemon sauce; grilled fish wrapped in lemon leaves and for a sweet ending~ torta di limone for dessert.
Hands-on cooking class includes the preparation of an antipasto, first course (such as pasta or risotto), second course and dessert. Toast with a great glass of homemade Aglianico, red, or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Program Price: $195 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Morning Classes start at 10am & Afternoon Classes start at 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Pasta Making Positano
Ravioli, Gnocchi, Scialatielli
Tie on your apron and get your rolling pin for a hands-on class in fresh pasta making. Our class, led by our team of Chefs in Positano, is for those who are pasta lovers at heart. Learn how to make fresh pasta from start to finish, and mix, roll and shape the delicate pastas of this region into mouth-watering creations. Our chefs share their Italian philosophy and practice of making just the right sauce for just the right pasta. In Italy each pasta pairs up with a different fresh sauce, and with over 1000 pastas in Italy, this is just a sampling. Our Chefs will give you direction on the basic styles and sauces that go into making each kind- stuffed, rolled, or twisted- for the freshest and tastiest Ravioli, Gnocchi, or Scialatielli. This hands-on class features fresh pasta making techniques, as well as sauce preparation including cherry tomatoes, lemon sauce, fresh seasonal vegetables, fish or meat. This class and its cooking techniques are based on the healthy Mediterranean diet. Class includes preparation of 2 pastas & 2 sauces.
Tie on your apron and get cooking for a fun-filled pasta-making class with wonderfully creative recipes, while picking up our Chefs’ advanced techniques and tricks of the kitchen. Everyone eats the foods prepared in class. After your class, linger and enjoy the pasta & foods made in class. Toast with a great glass of Aglianico, red, or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Program Price: $195 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Morning Classes start at 10am & Afternoon Classes start at 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Positano Fish!
A Full Course Cooking Class With Local Mediterranean Fish
Join our team of Chefs in the sea side town of Positano for a fish only menu featuring Mediterranean fish recipes from the once sleepy fishing town. The hands-on fish only cooking class teaches you how to clean the various local fish, and chopping, dicing, preparing and sauteeing into antipasto, primo, scondo and dolce! Imagine learning how to cooking the delicate fishes for the Italian Christmas Eve, La Vigilia, with authentic tortino di alici, tonno scattato, pasta con frutti di mare, vongole & funghi porcini, pesce all’acqua pazza, calamari & olive, and dessert-like panna cotta!
The Mediterranean fish, light, white and clean tasting include orata, pezzogna, dentice, pesce San Pietro, easy to prepare and healthy for the heart, this one day cooking class will have you cooking like an Italian! Classes are hands-on and feature local seasonal ingredients from our garden and of course-fresh fish from the sea. Our excellent Chefs, passionate about cooking, and ready to share their techniques in the kitchen, will have you preparing fish in several ways! Everyone enjoys the foods prepared in class followed by lunch or dinner. Your full course dinner includes a toast of local red or white wine. All menus vary by season to use the best fresh ingredients. Menus can be tailored to accommodate food allergies and diet needs.
Program Includes
- Hands-on Cooking Class followed by lunch or dinner.
- A toast of local wine included, with additional wines, beverages, after-dinner liqueur and caffè available at a surcharge.
Program Price: $265 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Classes start at 10:00am & 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Food Lover’s Tour Positano
& Cooking Class
Taste Your Way Through Positano!
Join us in Positano for a Food Lover’s Tour and hands-on Cooking class. This one-day Food Lover’s Tour Positano starts out with a walk through the cobblestone streets visiting Positano’s fishmonger, alimentari & enoteca, famous pastry maker and gelato maker. As we make our way through this beautiful seaside village, we make tasty stops along the way to learn about the local cheese, salumi, prosciutto, pasta, wine, bread seasonal fruits, vegetables, pizza, pastry, gelato and fish of the Amalfi Coast. Discussions & food tastings included.
Following the Food Lover’s Tour Positano, head to the kitchen where you will learn how to prepare the regional famed dishes of Positano with our local Chefs. Your cooking class includes preparing an antipasto, pasta and main dish, followed by lunch or dinner with the foods prepared in class.
Our Chefs share local treasured family recipes and techniques, and use only seasonal ingredients and fresh herbs & spices from the local organic garden. Hands-on cooking class includes the preparation of an antipasto, first course (such as pasta or risotto), second course and dessert. Lunch or dinner follows with the foods prepared in class. Toast with a great glass of Aglianico, red or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, included. Market tour starts promptly at 9am followed by hands-on cooking class with lunch or dinner after.
Program Price: $285 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Morning Food Lover’s Tour starts at 9am, Hands-On Cooking Class follows at 10:30am or at 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions. Products on the tour may be purchased and or shipped for personal use. Due to careful control of food allergies, products for the cooking class are not purchased during the tour.
Mozzarella Cheese Making & Cooking Class
In The Hills Of Positano
A Unique Food & Culture Experience
Join us for an early morning departure through the hillside of Positano for a cheese making visit. Learn how to make artisan Mozzarella and old-world cheese with our expert cheese makers. The family uses only the freshest milk, and then works it into a creamy cheese, weaving it into braids and twists. See the process then try your hand at creating artisan cheeses including Mozzarella, Provolone or Pecorino. Soft creamy fresh and aged cheeses are the final product. Tastings follow.
After, head into the kitchen to make a Neapolitan menu including some of the local artisan cheeses of the southern region. Antipasto, pasta, and main dish are included. Lunch or dinner follows and includes the foods prepared in class. Toast with a great glass of homemade Aglianico, red, or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Program Price: $295 per person, based on minimum 4, includes roundtrip transfers from Positano to the class and back. All Taxes and Italian VAT included.
Departure at 9:30am.
Please note: prices do not include accommodations or any other excursions.
Pizza-Making With Chef Antonio
In Positano
Join our professional pizzaiolo, Antonio, who will show you the technique and methods for making true Neapolitan pizza the old-world way. He mastered his craft with the best artisans in Italy, and at the Pizza Academy in Naples. Using a wood-burning pizza oven, he teaches his technique for rolling the dough into a perfect round pizza, cooking it at the ideal temperature, and turning the pizza just the right way. Learning to make pizza in Italy is an art, and our Pizzaiolo shows you just what it takes to create the perfect pizza.
You will learn how to measure and mix the ingredients into a perfect pizza dough; see how it rises, “punch” it, let it rise again, roll it, and “drive” it. Following the prep, you will see how to wood-oven bake it to perfection!
This class is a popular choice for those wanting to learn how to make a “real Neapolitan Pizza,” and for the professional pizza-maker who wants to expand their art & technique to bring back to their own kitchen. The class is also great for children, as Antonio takes you through step-by-step. hands-on cooking class includes preparation of pizza, antipasto and dessert. After class everyone eats the pizza prepared in class. Toast with a great glass of Aglianico, red, or Falanghina, white, wine, and end with a sweet dessert, both included.
Our kitchen for this special pizza workshop includes a wood-burning brick oven.
Program Price: $195 per person. All taxes and Italian VAT are included.
Morning Classes start at 10am & Afternoon Classes start at 4:30pm.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch or dinner following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Italian Pastry Making With Chef Philomena ~
1 Day
Torta di Pera, Sicilian Cannoli, Semifreddo al Torroncino, Delizia al Limone are a sample of Chef Philomena’s pastry making 1 day classes.
She is as sweet as her pastry! Her talented hands using seasonal, local ingredients turn ordinary ingredients into works of art. Learn about local pastry making while participating in hands-on classes with our Master Chef. Each class will show you techniques on local pastry making in small sized classes. Learn about the fruits of this land with Chef Philomena. Classes are geared toward each participant’s ability, and tastings follow of the pastries made in class.
Program Price: $255 per person. All taxes and Italian VAT are included.
Morning Classes start at 9:30am.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Italian Desserts, Gelato & Sorbetto
Cooking With Chef Raffaele
Capri Cake, Lemon Tiramisu, Chocolate Eggplant Lasagna
Creamy Ice-Cream, Season Fruit Sorbetto & Peach Bellinis
Join Chef Raffaele for a rainbow of tastes and colors in a special dessert, gelato & sorbetto making class in the heart of Positano.
Start with fresh milk and local Mediterranean fruit, as Chef Raffaele takes you step-by-step through the artisan craft of making creamy sweet gelato and sweet seasonal sorbetto. Kiwi, lemon, watermelon, chocolate, Baci, hazelnut, chestnut and more are just a sampling of the flavors. Bake and make local regional desserts including Capri Cake, Lemon Tiramisu, or the famous chocolate eggplant lasagna. Give your sweet tooth a treat in this workshop where you will be making local desserts and natural gelato & sorbetto by the mounds. Tastings follow the informative, fun and hands-on class which focuses on the dessets or the ice-cream making. This class is a great choice for children and adults. Family classes are kid, friendly, and one adult must be present. Adult classes are geared at a higher level.
Program Price: $195 per person. All taxes and Italian VAT are included.
Morning Classes start at 10am & Afternoon Classes start at 3:30pm.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Amalfi Coast Slow Cooking Food Trip Walking Tour
Reserve a private guided walking tour with Angela, native Ravello resident and eloquent art history expert who will take you on a Market Visit & Food Lover’s Tour Amalfi and Ravello Landmark Tour to the gardens, pathways, villas and churches of the town. If you love food and wine, Angela offers insight and history. The walking tour starts out with introduction to the historical city of Amalfi, and then moves on to all the best stops for food, produce, wine, pastry and cheese. As we make our way through this beautiful seaside village, we make a couple of tasty stops along the way, meet local producers of cheese, bread and more, and learn about the seasonal fruits, vegetables, fish & cheese of the Amalfi Coast. Tastings included.
Program Prices: $325 total, based on a group of two people.
$25 for each additional person. Includes all taxes and Italian VAT.
Morning tour starts at 9:30am.
*Entrance fees and transportation not included. We suggest taking a taxi from Amalfi up to Ravello, payable directly to your driver.
Limoncello Making & Olive Oil Tasting
Learn To Make Traditional Limoncello
Join us overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea in sunny Positano and learn how to make Limoncello. The Positano lemons used in making authentic DOP Limoncello, blossom and bloom four times per year. We start off the class with an informal discussion on the history behind the lemons and how they made their way on the Amalfi Coast. Learn our secrets on cooking with the Amalfi Coast lemons and take away with you our Lemon Lifestyle Recipe Booklet.
Get peeling and watch the famous lemon liqueur come alive before your eyes. As the lemons bathe in the magic mixture, we introduce you to our Virgin, First-Cold-Pressed, Olive Oils including natural Lemon, Orange, Napolitano, Puttanesca and Funghi. We will share with you our Extra Virgin first-cold pressed olive oil making methods. We make our own olive oil from the olives in our garden. This informal discussion includes tastings of oil and limoncello.
Program Price: $95 per person, all taxes and Italian VAT are included. Tastings included.
Morning Classes start at 10:30am, and Afternoon Classes start at 3:30pm.
Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
Above Capri Is Anacapri ~ Home To Maria’s Kitchen™
Chef Maria’s Cooking Class~1 Day
Join Chef Maria on the Island of Capri as she leads you through a traditional menu of cooking Caprese, with seasonal island ingredients, fresh local fish, the making of an antipasto, pasta, a main dish and dolce, dessert- all in one day. Chef Maria shares her secret recipes of ravioli Capresi, pesce al limone, torta di Capri, and limoncello in this special cooking course featuring the food of Capri.
Capri, the magical island located in the Bay of Naples, 20 minutes from Positano and Sorrento, has attracted Italy’s kings, queens and jet set over the centuries. Tour Tiberius’ villas, the Blue Grotto and Anacapri’s Villa San Michele. This Mediterranean island that has mystified the world’s great artists, writers and poets, continues to attract visitors from around the globe. Its diverse landscape, including jetting cliffs vertically pointing from the sea, to the chic shopping area with international boutiques to the laid back hills of Anacapri, offers a a little bit of magic for everyone.
Maria’s Mediterranean kitchen is set in her country villa atop Capri. Her class is hands-on, using fresh seasonal vegetables from her garden, local fresh fish and the famous wines of Capri bringing you up close to the specialties of the island. Her unique style of cooking, featuring the healthy Mediterranean diet includes the making of a complete 4 course lunch or dinner. Imagine, the blackest of olives drenched in first cold-pressed olive oil topped on toasted farmer’s bread for a melt-in-your-mouth bruschetta; delicate pasta capped with tomatoes, basil and capers; sea bass grilled between lemon leaves, and the famous Caprese, a sweet flourless chocolate cake with almonds.
Class begins at 4pm, wine, water and coffee included.
Dinner follows on the foods made in class.
Program Price: $245 per person, including all taxes and Italian VAT.
2012 Dates: This program is available throughout the year. Cooking classes are held every day. Rates are subject to change based on currency exchange. Call for updated rates. Airfare not included.)
Master Cooking With Chefs Ciro & Emilio
Advanced Cooking Class Positano
Award winning Executive Chefs Ciro and Emilio take the lead in this Master Cooking Class for the advanced home cook and Chef in their professional kitchen on the sea. This advanced class, for experienced passionate cooks, includes hands-on chopping, slicing, dicing, sautéing and prepping seasonal foods with a profound understanding of tradition. Using high quality ingredients and precision technique you will be creating antipasti, pasta, risotto, main courses, pastries & desserts, and artisan breads.
Ciro and Emilio, professional Executive Chefs take their skills from the professional sector to their kitchen for this advanced cooking experience. Menus include Mare-seafood, vegetarian or Terra-meat.
Hailed as the Volcano Of Ideas in the kitchen, Ciro and Emilio have a passion for perfection and a philosophy of “tavolozza dai mille colori.” This Master Class offers a kitchen challenge, while learning to create foods that look like art with Italy’s two young rising star Chefs.
Following the cooking class, everyone enjoys lunch with the foods prepared in class with a romantic view on the sea. A toast of local red or white wine included.
All menus vary by season to use the best fresh ingredients. Menus can be tailored to accommodate food allergies, diet needs and vegetarian too.
Program Includes:
* Master hands-on Cooking Class followed by lunch on the terrace overlooking the sea.
* A toast of local wine included, with additional wines, beverages, after-dinner liqueur and caffè available at a surcharge.
Program Price: $325 per person. Taxes & Italian VAT included.
Minimum of three people.
Classes start at 10:00am.
*Friends or family members in your group, who are not cooking, and want to join for lunch following the class, need to reserve in advance. Call to inquire about menus and pricing.
• Please note: prices do not include transportation, accommodations or any other excursions.
