Discover the Best French Cooking Classes in Los Angeles
French cooking has a long and storied history. It has been the province of wealthy aristocrats and politicians - Thomas Jefferson served French cuisine in the room(s) where it happens - and 20th-century chefs trying to return haute cuisine to the basics: good food well-prepared. Alice Walker’s internationally-acclaimed Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, helped to launch the modern farm-to-table movement in Berkeley, CA in the 1970s. Since then, people have understood French cooking as a way to balance rich sauces, decadent pastries, and top-notch wines with a healthy focus on fresh, high-quality fruits and vegetables, well-balanced spices, and prime cuts of meat. French cooking techniques allow chefs to show off their skills and ensure that quality ingredients shine on their own.
Why You Should Learn French Cooking in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA is a foodie city - of that there can be no doubt. Of the approximately 25,000 restaurants in Los Angeles County, there are at least 500 specializing in French food (and at least 10 that welcome dogs to their outdoor seating). Despite these options, however, many are choosing to learn to cook French food themselves. There are numerous reasons for this. For example, what are you to do if you don’t live near one of the 10 restaurants that will welcome your dog? On a more serious note, learning French cooking can be a lot of fun. Whether you cook with friends or on your own, learning to return to basics and cook tasty, healthy meals is a welcome respite from the hustle and bustle of modern life. As Julia Child reminds us, “The more you know, the more you can create. There’s no end to imagination in the kitchen.”
French cooking is a useful and stimulating hobby. While you can master the basics in just a few lessons, you will find that there is always something new to learn and a tasty treat to enjoy at the end of every session. In addition to giving you a new skill, French cooking classes can help you meet new people. Whether you meet people in class, or go on to participate in community-based cooking clubs like Pasadena's Gourmet Cooking Meetup, cooking as a group is a great way to overcome any social awkwardness and connect with friends or strangers over a shared interest. French cooking can also help you at work. As you progress into delectable treats like macarons and croissants, you’ll have plenty to share. Bringing desserts to work always earns a well-deserved popularity boost. Some managers bring treats for their teams every few weeks, using their passion for baking to motivate their employees and increase job satisfaction and productivity.
In-Person French Cooking Classes in Los Angeles
It’s incredibly easy to learn French cooking in Los Angeles, CA. Indeed, many well-known restaurants also host cooking classes. If you don’t have much experience cooking, you’ll want to start with the basics in a class like French Feast a la Julia Child, Chef Eric Jacques Crowley’s call-back to one of the first home chefs to popularize French cooking in the United States. Julia Child learned French cooking while living in post-World War II France with her diplomat husband. Like Child, for whom French cooking was a second career (after her first career in wartime espionage), Chef Eric became a chef later in life. After an unsatisfying legal career, he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. After a decade spent gaining experience in Michelin-starred European restaurants like Barcelona’s Via Veneto and Munich’s Hotel Kempinski, Chef Eric returned to the United States and opened Chef Eric’s Culinary Classroom in West Los Angeles’ Westside neighborhood. His pristine commercial kitchen is centrally located between the 405 and the 10, right off Overland and just blocks from the Westside Pavillion.
Chef Eric’s students praise his hands-on instruction techniques and calm, patient teaching style. Beginner classes like French Feast a la Julia Child introduce students aged 15 and up to traditional French dishes like Beef Bourguignon, Braised Baby Onions, and Green Beans Provencal. Along the way, you’ll become familiar with techniques like braising, stewing, and baking. You’ll also learn to prepare classic French sauces like the quintessential red wine reduction sauce, flavored cream sauces, and shallot-infused butter. Class sizes are small, ensuring that you’ll get plenty of hands-on instruction as you experiment with new techniques. Those looking to learn advanced French cooking in Los Angeles can enroll in advanced courses of study. Chef Eric’s 12-week Master Chef program meets weekly for three months, with each session focusing on a different technique or dish, including knife skills, sauces, eggs, and dry v. wet heat cooking methods. Regardless of your level, each class is an all-inclusive experience. Ingredients and equipment are staged in advance in Chef Eric’s state-of-the-art facilities so you can get right to cooking.
If you live or work closer to the Valley, Studio City’s Cook LA Cooking School might be an easier commute. Cook LA Cooking School approaches cooking as a way of life and a means of connecting with friends, families, and your larger community. Their classes bring participants together to explore healthy, conscientious meal preparation. After preparing a delicious meal at your dedicated prep station, complete with tools and ingredients, you’ll come together with the rest of your class for a satisfying dinner party - often with a specially chosen wine pairing. Because they want to make sure everyone can learn to cook, all of Cook LA Cooking School’s classes are vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free friendly. Just reach out when you book your class to let the school know of any dietary restrictions.
If you’re preparing for a special event, you might consider Holiday French Baking. This pastry class welcomes participants of all skill levels to learn to make delightfully decadent French pastries, including éclairs, Madeleines, Crème Brulee, chocolate ganache, and mini gougères. French pastries are hard to learn on your own. However, once you know the secrets and have some practice under your belt, they become an easy way to impress friends, families, and coworkers. Students who have taken Cook LA Cooking School’s personalized, hands-on French cooking classes praise the instructors’ enthusiasm, interactivity, and calm manner while answering questions. Classes generally have 15 or fewer students, ensuring that you get the attention you need. Cook LA Cooking School also hosts private events, including specialized cooking classes, parties, and corporate retreats.
Spork Foods serves Los Angeles, CA’s West Hollywood area with nutritious, affordable vegan French cooking options. Sisters Jenny Engel and Heather Goldberg founded Spork Foods in the early 2000s to encourage and enable healthy, compassionate eating choices. In addition to their in-home healthy eating consultations, corporate training, cookbooks, and upcoming Culver City restaurant (Hey Sunshine Kitchen), they offer popular organic vegan cooking classes in their Santa Monica Blvd kitchen space. Classes like Fall French Cuisine prove that French cooking can be just as delectable without all the meat and dairy. Class menus rotate to ensure that you’re cooking with the freshest seasonal ingredients, but past line-ups have included Les Asperges a la Hollandaise (Grilled Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce), Potato, Niçoise Olive, and Rosemary Quiche, and Crème Brûlée à la Framboise (Raspberry Crème Brulee). You’ll learn indispensable skills that can adapt to any meal, including how to grill, prepare pastry, and create healthy, vegan sauces for every day of the week. The enthusiastic sisters pride themselves on creating an environment in which all feel welcome and confident about acquiring new skills.
Virtual French Cooking Classes
Let’s face it - much as you might love to go out and learn French cooking in person, it isn’t always possible. Whether the constraint is work, family, or the ever-present specter of traffic, it may be easier for you to look into online French cooking classes. And online classes have many pros. For one, you’ll have more options, especially when you want to learn to make a specific dish. While YouTube videos can only help you so much, a live online class will be led by an experienced instructor ready to answer all your questions and guide you through every step. This makes online French cooking classes ideal for shy first-time chefs who may not be comfortable cooking in front of strangers, or for advanced home chefs looking for a quick refresher.
While some are hesitant to take online cooking classes because they worry about having to supply equipment and ingredients, many see this as a benefit. Well-stocked commercial kitchens are beautiful, but the truth is that you probably already own most of the tools that you need to prepare most French dishes, and you can buy most ingredients at your local grocery store or farmers market. And, as advanced home chefs know, it is much easier to pick up new skills in a familiar space and using tools you know.
When you’re choosing your first online French cooking class, it helps to think about what sort of food you’ll want to eat frequently - that ensures that you’ll continue practicing after class is over. A satisfying option for those seeking a versatile French treat might be crȇpes. Crȇpes are incredibly popular - there are over 100 crȇperies in Los Angeles alone - but few Angelenos realize that it’s incredibly easy to prepare the beloved French street food themselves. One appealing offering is Home Cooking New York’s Virtual Crȇpe Workshop. Founded by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s former Food Editor, Jennifer Clair, Home Cooking New York works to make simple, delicious home cooking accessible for everyone. This mission is personal for Clair, who first went to culinary school after more than a decade working in food media. In Home Cooking New York’s Virtual Crȇpe Workshop, you’ll learn to prepare sweet and savory crȇpes from scratch, starting with the batter. After you’ve practiced cooking your delicate pancakes to golden brown perfection, you’ll fill some with savory cheesy Mornay sauce and others with buttery caramelized orange slices. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you learn to make that quintessentially French dessert, Crȇpes Suzette. Moreover, once the class is over, you’ll be able to make crȇpes for any meal. Their hand-held format makes them especially convenient for on-the-run breakfasts.
If you’re more interested in lunch or dinner, The Chopping Block Lincoln Square’s Virtual French Bistro class will teach you to prepare a quintessentially French salad and entree: Salade Lyonnaise and Steak au Poivre. Students laud The Chopping Block Lincoln Square for its energetic, empathetic, professional instructors, noting that nothing you can do will surprise them. The Chicago-based cooking school exclusively serves home chefs and their dynamic culinarians intermix cooking instruction with advice on how to choose the best cuts of meat and freshest fruits and vegetables. Along the way, you’ll learn to balance complex flavors and mix up a vinaigrette that can be adapted to any salad. You’ll receive a class schedule, equipment, and ingredient lists as soon as you register, ensuring that you’ll have plenty of time to find everything in your local grocery store or farmers market. During the class, your questions will be handled by a dedicated Zoom moderator who will make sure that you get answers either during or immediately after the class period.
Finally, no meal - French or otherwise - is complete without dessert. When it comes to French cuisine, there is no delicacy more acclaimed than the macaron. This famous cookie can be traced back to 8th-century Venetian nuns. In the present, macarons combine a light, crisp cookie shell with buttercream, jam, or ganache fillings. Macarons are daunting for everyone, but they translate well to the online class format. The reason that macarons are difficult to perfect is that the cookie shell is sensitive to oven temperature and humidity - even experienced pastry chefs must adjust their techniques every time they enter an unfamiliar kitchen. If you learn to make macarons from home though, you already have some understanding of the way your oven works. The Good Food Project’s French Macaron Step-by-Step Class helps students of all levels work toward the perfect macaron. This approachable, welcoming, and - crucially, repeatable - workshop leads participants through every step of the macaron-making process, from measuring ingredients, to balancing flavors, to determining the proper cooking time based on the temperature and humidity of your own oven. The Good Food Project works to make diverse, sweet, and healthy home cooking pleasurable and achievable for everyone. To this end, you can participate in this weekly macaron workshop as many times as you like as you hone your skills. Each session features a different flavor of macaron, so you’ll never be bored, even if you’re just back for a quick refresher. These live Zoom workshops also make great group events, either on their own or as part of a bridal shower, baby shower, or birthday.
Private Group French Cooking Classes in Los Angeles
French cooking classes are fun on your own, but they’re even more enjoyable as part of a group. Private group French cooking classes are an especially enjoyable and unique activity for corporate retreats, team-building, and fundraising events. There’s something about coming together to prepare a meal that brings people together and teaches them to work as a team. CourseHorse gives you all the tools you need to find private French cooking classes for groups and businesses in Los Angeles, CA. They can also help you organize new and unique events with any of their experienced providers.
One option for anyone organizing a corporate retreat is CourseHorse Experiences’ Virtual Pasta Making workshop. In this 2-hour Zoom class, participants of all skill levels will learn to make fresh pasta, a crucial building block of many French dishes: fresh pasta. Working alone or in small groups, participants learn how to form regular or gluten-free pappardelle pasta by hand. CourseHorse Experiences’ professional chefs and experienced teachers help you complete the meal with homemade marinara and pesto sauces. Scheduling is flexible and up to you, so you can make this class part of a larger corporate retreat - perhaps right before lunch? - or a stand-alone event. Because corporate event sizes always shift during preparation, you can change your group number even after you’ve registered. The workshop can accommodate up to 500 people, and there are no booking fees. There’s a list of required ingredients and equipment right in the course listing, and they can also be sent directly to you for an additional fee. Ingredients can be tailored to dietary requirements, and gluten-free flour is available. Alums rave about their supportive instructors, citing their patience and clarity in helping new chefs to expand their horizons.
If you’re interested in a larger meal, CourseHorse Experiences also offers a Virtual French Cooking workshop that can host up to 255 participants. This Zoom class celebrates French bistro favorites like roasted chicken, Provençal Ratatouille, and Rosemary & Garlic Roasted potatoes, though the menu can also be customized for an additional fee. Your group will learn to dice, spice, and roast the summer’s freshest vegetables as they bond over preparing - then enjoying - a delicious meal. You can host your participants in a space of your own, or from their own homes - either way, they will be able to interact with the skilled instructor and each other through the online platform’s voice and chat functions. You’ll receive a confirmation email within 24 hours of booking and your instructor will reach out individually to introduce themselves and discuss any particular needs your group might have. While ingredients aren’t included in the course price, CourseHorse is happy to help you with the shopping as well.
CourseHorse makes it easy to schedule live, online French cooking classes for your business, organization, or just for a large group of friends. Even if you don’t see a class you want listed online, it’s easy to arrange one. For example, Los Angeles, CA cooking schools like Cook LA Cooking School, Spork Foods, and others, are happy to organize events and classes for private groups at any time. CourseHorse makes it especially easy to book online or in-person classes. There are no booking fees and its flexible booking system lets you book a class even if you don’t know your final group size. You’ll receive an email confirmation of your booking within 24 hours, and you can change your group size after booking. If you want to customize your event, or if you’re looking to create something completely your own, CourseHorse’s event providers and customer service agents will help you pull it off. You can always reach a real person by email or on the phone directly through CourseHorse’s contact form. Finally, for online events, CourseHorse can support most major video platforms. While CourseHorse recommends Zoom, they can also support Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx. Many courses can even come to your office or home space.
