Discover the Best Italian Cooking Classes in NYC
Whether your Italian heritage, taste for Neapolitan pizza, or culinary career drives your interest, you’re embarking on a rich culinary journey when you sign up for an Italian cooking class. From chicken Milanese to pesto alla Genovese, the iconic dishes hold deep connections with the people, geography, history, and traditions of Italy.
When learning Italian cooking at a high level, you’ll learn more than just processes and recipes: you’ll need to know their history and cultural significance as well. You’ll also become a master of multi-sensory skills such as balancing flavors, food presentation, and the techniques needed to make your own pasta, cheese, and sauces from scratch.
Why You Should Learn Italian Cooking in NYC
Considering 2.62 million New Yorkers claim Italian birth or heritage, there is a reasonable chance you want to learn Italian cooking in NYC to connect with your or your loved ones’ culture. Living in a city featuring more than 280 Italian restaurants, not to mention hundreds of pizzerias and Italian delis, you may want to learn Italian cooking as part of your career journey as a professional chef. Or perhaps you simply want to cut your dining out budget by cooking your own mouth-watering Italian feasts at home.
Wherever you live, Italian cooking is an enjoyable hobby that nourishes the body and indulges the senses. You’ll find it especially relaxing in NYC, where the abundance of farmers’ markets, Italian grocery stores, and other specialty markets make finding fresh, high-quality ingredients a piece of cake.
In-Person Italian Cooking Classes & Schools in NYC
Italian cooking is a culinary art especially suitable for kitchen-classroom learning, as nothing beats a live instructor when you’re learning what dough should feel like, what sauce should smell like, or how to know when that lasagna is ready to come out of the oven. Plus, you’re guaranteed to have every kitchen tool and ingredient you may need without having to schedule any time-consuming shopping trips.
The professional chefs of CocuSocial offer fun cooking, baking, and wine-tasting events with a social twist. CocuSocial works hard to create safe and welcoming learning spaces for all customers through partnerships with local restaurants and hotels.
Tagliatelle al Pesto with an Italian Master Chef is the perfect launchpad for your Italian cooking learning journey. It is designed with beginners in mind, though anyone who would enjoy socializing with fellow Italian cuisine enthusiasts will appreciate the class. In Hyatt House’s Chelsea location, Italian Master Chef Instructor Gianluca will lead you through the regional and cultural history associated with pesto alla Genovese as you learn to make it using a mortar and pestle with the most authentic techniques. You’ll then learn how to create fresh egg tagliatelle pasta from scratch, plate your meal, and enjoy it with your new friends.
Chef, bartender, and performer Carolyn leads CoCuSocial’s Fresh Mozzarella and Burrata workshop on the second floor of EVEN Hotel in Times Square. She brings her high energy and enthusiasm to the table as she guides you through every step of making silky mozzarella and its creamier cousin, burrata. You’ll have the opportunity to sample your cheese along with drinks you purchase on-site.
Since 2002, Home Cooking New York has provided culinary education events for amateur chefs through every stage of their learning journey. Their Northern Italian Favorites for the Summer workshop features a menu of summer pasta puttanesca with fresh zucchini noodles, fresh ricotta gnocchi with fresh basil pesto, and Tuscan kale salad with garlicky breadcrumbs and lemon. You’ll go home with a recipe packet after preparing these dishes and enjoying them with your classmates.
Taste Buds Kitchen is a culinary entertainment venue with programming for everyone from ages two to 99. The nut-free kitchen was voted “Best Kids Cooking Class” by New York Magazine and features cooking camps, classes, parties, and BYOB Adult Kitchen workshops in the evenings.
A Tour of Tuscany (BYOB) is perfect for a date night or to bring a friend along for a fun evening of Italian cooking. Each ticket pays for two guests and comes with the invitation to bring your own bottle of wine to enjoy throughout the class. A Tour of Tuscany features a vegetarian menu of roasted garlic potato gnocchi, garlic spinach potato gnocchi, brown butter sage sauce, Tuscan kale salad with tomato confit, and chocolate-dipped biscotti.
You can also buy a ticket for two for Taste Buds Kitchen’s Handmade Pasta (BYOB), for another experience equally enjoyable as a date night or a girls’ night out. Suitable for all levels of experience, this class will teach you how to knead, roll, and shape your own pasta, including fettuccine, roasted butternut squash ravioli, hand-folded spinach ricotta ravioli, and rustic tomato sauce.
Miette began as a French cooking school but now teaches classes on skills, recipes, and techniques found in kitchens all over the world from their home in Little Italy. Their Italian Classics for the Modern Vegan is a unique class open to ages 13 and older (teens younger than 19 must be accompanied by an adult). Vegans, vegetarians, and even meat-eaters will enjoy Chef Paul Vandewoude’s class on creating healthy versions of iconic Italian dishes without a hint of compromise in flavor or creaminess. You’ll learn to make Caesar salad with tahini miso dressing, butternut squash risotto with flavorful vegetable stock, crostini with carrot cashew miso spread, and finally, a refreshing dessert of raspberry sorbet.
Virtual Italian Cooking Classes & Schools
Online Italian Cooking classes offer many of the same perks as in-person ones: a live teacher who can give feedback in real time and a community of like-minded fellow students. In-person classes hold the advantage of providing a professional kitchen setup and all tools and ingredients required. However, many find themselves more comfortable learning in their own kitchen. Whether you don’t have time for a commute or simply prefer to cook in your own home, check out CourseHorse’s catalog of online Italian cooking classes.
You can learn to cook an impressive Northern Italian Dinner with Home Cooking New York’s class without ever stepping foot out of your own kitchen. A professional chef will guide you through the preparation of four servings of pan-roasted lemon-rosemary chicken, creamy polenta Parmigiano, and garlicky roasted broccoli rabe. They provide a grocery list for four servings of this rustic meal, but you can easily adjust the recipe to serve as many as you choose.
Another fine Italian cooking class option is The Good Food Project’s Ravioli and Filled Pasta Workshop. You will learn to make your own fettuccine, linguine, ravioli, mezzaluna, and tortellini. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a plate of scratch-made tortellini and ravioli and the confidence to be able to prepare the pasta of your choice in your own kitchen any day of the week.
Private Group Italian Cooking Classes in NYC
Are you looking for a source for Italian cooking classes for private groups in NYC? Workshops in pasta making and courses on cooking iconic Italian dishes are delicious team-building exercises everyone will be excited about in your business or organization. CourseHorse specializes in connecting people just like you with private group classes covering nearly any skill you can think of, including plenty on Italian cooking.
You can’t go wrong with the NYC In-Person: Modern Cooking Class, hosted by The Village Kitchen in their intimate Greenwich Village location. Suitable for groups of up to 16 people, this class includes two hours of meal preparation time followed by an hour to enjoy the fruits of your labor with wine hand-selected for your meal. You can customize your menu to accommodate any allergies, but by default, it will include a ricotta dish, sous vide chicken breast, cauliflower Milanese, and deconstructed tiramisu.
Another option offered at The Village Kitchen is NYC In-Person: Pasta Making 101, a workshop in Italian cooking and a gourmet dinner party for up to 16 guests all in one. Together your team will learn to make baby spinach salad with strawberries, almonds, and balsamic, eggs fettuccine with ragú alla bolognese, squared spaghetti alla chitarra with pesto alla Genovese, semolina cavatelli boscaiola with pancetta, peas, and mushrooms, and homemade coffee gelato. You’ll enjoy your meal with wine and be able to take any leftovers home after your event.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for on CourseHorse’s website, reach out to their team of experts via their contact form to book the private Italian cooking class you want to offer your group. Or, if you’re more of a phone person, schedule a 15-minute phone call with a CourseHorse expert who will hook you up with the perfect instructor and curriculum for your team.
CourseHorse will take care of all the details of coordinating your class and send your confirmation within 24 hours of booking. And if your headcount changes after that, CourseHorse allows you to change your class size up to a week before your event. You’ll pay no booking fee when scheduling your Italian cooking class through CourseHorse, but for just $150, you can tailor your team’s experience with custom games, activities, or recipes.
With CourseHorse, you can book in-person group classes in NYC or virtual group classes that your team can attend from their homes or the office. CourseHorse recommends Zoom for online courses, but they can also accommodate other video conferencing platforms such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx.
