Tie on your apron with Chef Maria in our Mare e Monti, sea and mountian cooking program on the Amalfi Coast. Learn how to make the lasagne, ravioli, fish and desserts with an Italian Nonna while immersing yourself with the family. Discover Amalfi Coast cooking classes, wine tasting, a delicious food lovers walk as you cook, sip and relax in Chef Maria’s palazzo.
As featured in 
August 2017 – Click here to read more!
Chef Maria prepares traditional recipes using farm-to-table produce from her garden. Shop with the Chef in the local village, and learn about artisan mozzarella, salumi, bread, and limoncello with tastings along the way.
Following your shopping experience, tie on your aprons and head to the kitchen. She starts with antipasto, then, fresh pasta and sauce, a main course and dessert. Experience the freshest sea food and clams, shrimp. You will also prepare grass fed meat and free range chicken. You will prepare Maria’s recipe for zeppole, lemon cake and walnut cake made from the nuts in her garden.
Maria’s husband Umberto grows his own organic vegetables – zucchini, fava beans, peas, eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, chilli peppers, basil and parsley. Visit the garden and help pick vegetables and fruits for the cooking class. The family also grows grapes in their vineyard, and makes homemade wine.
As featured in August 2017 – Click here to read more!
Amalfi Coast Accommodation
Check in to the villa palazzo and relax. Each bedroom has a terrace or balcony with views of the sea. Cool terracotta tiles line each large bedroom, and all guest rooms have a private bathroom with a shower and hair-dryer, wifi and a TV. Breakfast is served each morning and includes coffee, teas, fresh fruit, yogurt, bread, cakes made by Maria, farm-fresh eggs and jams. Enjoy your breakfast outdoors in the garden where the family grows chestnut and fig trees, jasmine and lavender. Maria’s herb garden – growing rosemary, mint, basil, and basil scent the air.
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Agerola
Known both as the Piccola Svizzera, little Switzerland, and the Grande Terrazza sul Mare, the great terrace overlooking the sea, the small town of Agerola is set between the Lattari Mountains above the Amalfi Coast. Approximately 600 meters above sea level, the small town offers lush green hills overlooking the Amalfi Coast.
Agerola is cherished by nature lovers who delight in hiking and exploring the countryside. This town is famous for the Walk of the Gods, hiking path. Sea meets sky from the Walk of the Gods paths boasting unbeatable views of terraces lined with lemon groves. Tranquility reigns along the pathways where you’ll find herds of goats or donkey’s carrying supplies.
From Agerola it is an easy driver to Amalfi, Ravello, Positano, Vietri, Praiano, Sorrento and Capri, and Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and Naples.
Amalfi Coast Cooking Classes
All cooking classes take place in Maria’s country kitchen and include the preparation of a full menu, antipasto, fresh pasta with seasonal sauce, main course and dessert. Discover more about the area’s wonderful local products and cooking traditions, and watch carefully as Maria guides you through lessons on handmade pasta, delicious lasagne, and pasta with porcini mushrooms. Try your hand at preparing traditional veal dishes, chicken and rabbit roasted in lemon leaves, grilled beef, and sweets like cream-filled zeppole, walnut cake and ricotta and pear tart. Please note that the menus are samples and all menus depend on the availability of seasonal produce including the vegetables which are gathered fresh every day from the organic vegetable garden.
Amalfi Coast Cooking Classes
Join Chef Maria in the kitchen where you will prepare full menus starting with antipasto, fresh pasta with seasonal sauce, main course and dessert. Maria guides you through each hands-on cooking class using her family recipes. Following each cooking class, everyone enjoys the food that was made in the class with local white or red wine.
Itinerary: 4 days, 3 nights
Day 1: Benvenuto & Welcome Dinner
• Pick-up and transfer to property.
• Check into your room, meet your hosts, and review your program.
• Sit out on the terrace and enjoy your Prosecco.
• Later in the evening, enjoy your Welcome Dinner featuring a Chef’s Tasting Menu featuring local fare with local wine and caffe included.
Day 2: Artisan Mozzarella Producer and Amalfi Coast Cooking Class 1
• Breakfast is served.
• In the morning, visit to the traditional mozzarella producers in Agerola. Discover how they make the area’s delicious fior di latte and additional artisan cheese with tastings included.
• Lunch is on your own.
• Following your visit, return to Agerola.
• In the afternoon, join Chef Maria in the kitchen for your first hands-on cooking. Prepare traditional mare e monti, sea and land, antipasti, Neapolitan lasagne, caponata, a delicious bread and mozzarella salad and homemade babà with limoncello. Dinner follows and everyone enjoys the food that was prepared in the cooking class with red or white wine and caffe included.
Day 3: Morning Food Trip To Local Limoncello Producer and Amalfi Cooking Class 2
• Breakfast is served.
• An early morning departure to a local limoncello producer where you will discover the secrets to making this much loved local liqueur that is made with the fragrant Amalfi Coast lemons.
• Take time for lunch is on your own with suggestions provided
• In the afternoon, join Chef Maria for your second hands-on cooking class. Learn to prepare zeppole agerolesi, paccheri pasta with eggplant and provolone del monaco. Learn how to prepare chicken with Amalfi Coast lemon and potatoes. For dessert, mix and bake torta di noci, a delicate walnut cake made with nuts from her garden. Dinner follows and everyone enjoys the food that was prepared in the cooking class with local white or red wine and caffe included.
Day 4: Arrivederci
• Breakfast is served
• Check out and arrivederci!
Program Includes:
- 3 nights, 4 days accommodation in in a villa palazzo property. Click to View!
- Daily breakfast and maid service.
- Welcome Dinner featuring a Chef’s Tasting with a full course menu of local fare with wine and caffe included.
- 2 Cooking classes, followed the food prepared in the cooking class with wine, water, dessert and coffee included.
- Excursion to artisan mozzarella maker with English-speaking guide and tastings included.
- Excursion to to artisan limoncello maker with with English-speaking guide and tastings included.
- Round trip transfers to and from Naples Airport or Train to property.
- Cooking Vacations Welcome Bag with Chef’s apron, Prosecco and recipe booklet.
- A copy of Lauren’s cookbook, “It’s A Dream Place – Stories & Recipes of Food, Love and the Amalfi Coast.”
Program Prices
$2,295 per person, based on 2 guests.
2024 Dates: You can check in and start your cooking program any day of the week. Rates are subject to change based on currency exchange. Call for updated rates. Airfare not included. Group transfers for any cooking tour or tours that include transfers, are for the group and are not private. Transfers before, after or to another destination outside of your cooking tour are not included in the program price. If you would like to add on a private transfer or transfers, let us know and we will send you pricing.
