Learn the pasta first. The rest of Italy can wait an afternoon.
Which Rome class lets you roll the dough and which one watches a chef do it. What three hours costs in Florence. Whether the tiramisu is worth the extra twenty dollars. Reviews of every pasta and pizza class you can book.
Four pasta classes that sell their seats first.
Rome, Florence, Bologna, Naples. What each city is known for teaching, what the sitting costs and how long you stand at the board.
01Rome, a street off Navona3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & TiramisuFettuccine, ravioli and tiramisu in one sitting. The busiest board in the city and it still runs hands-on.
02Florence, and nobody countsPasta Cooking Class with Unlimited WineThe cheapest seat anywhere on the site, and the class more travellers take than any other.
03Bologna, where the ragu rulesPasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & GelatoTagliatelle cut by hand to the width the city keeps in a case, a ragu going since morning, gelato at the end.
04Naples, two hours flatPasta Making Class with Starter and DrinkDough, a starter and a drink, in the city that argues about flour for a living.
Six Italian cities that teach pasta properly.
Rome rolls fettuccine, Bologna folds tortellini, Naples works pizza dough, Florence pours while you knead. Six starting points, and what each one is best at putting in your hands.
Tagliatelle, ravioli, gnocchi, tiramisu. Pick the shape you want to learn.
Most sittings teach one dough and two shapes in three hours. The three-in-one classes add a filled pasta and a dessert on top; the workshops stay on fresh sheets the whole way and skip the sweet course.
Rome teaches pasta four different ways. Pick your afternoon.
Ninety-odd boards inside the walls and they split cleanly. What it costs to join each kind, and what you walk out able to make without a recipe card.
The pasta classes travellers book ahead of everything else.
Every board on the site →The sittings that take more bookings than anything else on the site, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Pasta Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine
Learn to make ravioli, tortelli, and pappardelle from scratch inside a 1200s medieval tower near Brunelleschi’s Dome. Chefs such as Andrea, Victoria, Antonio, and Valentino guide the work, then you eat the pasta with sauces, Tuscan wine, and soft drinks. The class is hands-on, family-friendly, and priced at $21.
From · $21
Read our review →
2
3 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & Tiramisu
from $83
3
Florence Pizza or Pasta Class with Gelato Making at a Tuscan Farm
from $145
4
Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine
from $56
5
Pasta & Tiramisu Class with Fine Wine by the Vatican
from $41
6
Pasta Making Class with Wine, Limoncello, and Dessert
from $48
7
Pastamania – Florence Pasta Making Class
from $49
8
Rome Cooking Class: Make Pasta and 3 Spritz Cocktails
from $99
What happens between the apron and the plate.
Nearly every class on this site runs about three hours, and they spend it the same way. If a listing promises more, it is usually a market walk or a drive bolted on the front.
- 00:00Flour on the boardA well of flour, eggs cracked into the middle, and ten minutes of pushing before the dough behaves.
- 00:40The sheetRolled by pin or cranked through a machine until you can almost read through it. This is where arms start to complain.
- 01:20Cut and fillTagliatelle, ravioli or gnocchi, depending on the class you picked. This is the part everybody photographs.
- 02:00You eat what you madeSauce, a seat at the table, and the wine that has been open since the flour went down.
Florence pours first and asks you to knead second.
The unlimited-wine class is a Florence invention, and it is why the city holds the cheapest well-reviewed seat anywhere. The Tuscan farm days go the other way: a drive out of town, pizza in a wood oven and gelato churned before lunch.
All the Florence boards →
Bologna does not do a quick pasta class.
Tagliatelle cut to a width the city keeps on record, tortellini folded one at a time, a ragu that started long before you arrived. Emilia-Romagna teaches the slow end of the craft and charges for the patience.
- 1Bologna Food & Market Tour with 6 Tastings, Pasta, Wines & Morefrom $118
- 2Pasta Cooking Class, Ragu, Spritz, Wine & Gelatofrom $79
- 3Pastamama, Home Cooking Classes at Grace’s Homefrom $114
Half of Italy teaches tiramisu on the same afternoon as the pasta.
Three eggs, mascarpone, coffee, and a set of rules people genuinely fight about. It is the most common thing bolted onto a pasta sitting, and the classes that do it properly put it in the title rather than the small print.
What three hours at an Italian pasta board actually costs.
Every class on the site, grouped by price. The cheap end is not the weak end here: the single most popular sitting anywhere costs twenty-one dollars.
City-centre kitchens, two to three hours, one dough and a glass. Rome, Florence and Naples hold most of them.
The standard sitting: pasta, a filled shape, tiramisu, and enough wine that nobody is counting.
Farmhouse days with a drive attached, private tables, and the small classes cooked in somebody’s own kitchen.
Three things Italy teaches that nowhere else bothers with.
Fresh pasta is taught everywhere now. A marble mortar of Genoese basil, a mozzarella pulled by hand in front of you, and a tiramisu argued over by the people who invented it are not.
Pesto in a marble mortar
Genoa makes its pesto in stone, not steel: basil, pine nuts, garlic and two cheeses ground with a wooden pestle until the oil comes out of the leaf rather than being beaten into it. A blade bruises basil and turns it dark, which is why the classes here hand you a mortar and expect fifteen minutes of patience. The result tastes greener than anything a jar has ever managed.
- 1Homemade Pasta and Pesto Class with a Local Chef in Genoa★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 305 reviews
- 2Homemade Pasta & Pesto Local Chef Class with Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 217 reviews
- 3Pasta, Pesto and Tiramisu class Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 57 reviews
Mozzarella pulled by hand
Curd arrives warm, gets scalded in water near boiling, and is then stretched and folded until it turns glossy and snaps back. The trick is knowing when to stop: a minute too long and it goes tough. Coastal classes run it alongside the pasta because the two share a kitchen and a morning, and because the difference between this and a supermarket ball is not subtle.
- 1Cooking class with Pasta, mozzarella and Tiramisu with wine★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 549 reviews
- 2Make Fresh Pasta, Mozzarella & Tiramisù with wine★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 503 reviews
- 3Make Fresh Pasta, Mozzarella, & Tiramisù with Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 305 reviews
Tiramisu, and who owns it
Treviso and Friuli have both claimed the invention, and the recipe is fought over savoyardi by savoyardi: coffee or coffee and liqueur, cocoa before or after resting, eggs raw or cooked into a zabaglione. Classes teach one version with conviction and then tell you why the other town is wrong. It sets in the fridge while you eat the pasta.
- 13 in 1 Cooking Class near Navona: Fettuccine, Ravioli & Tiramisu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 7,376 reviews
- 2Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 6,708 reviews
- 3Pasta & Tiramisu Class with Fine Wine by the Vatican★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,852 reviews
Four things a pasta class will not bend on.
Kitchens are small and the dough runs on a clock. Most sittings cap at ten or twelve places, they run once or twice a day rather than on demand, dietary swaps have to be declared when you book and not at the board, and a class billed as private is a different price, not a different room. Filter for the constraint that matters to you before you compare prices.
Naples to Bologna, a different dough at every stop.
Boards we have written up this week.
Further down the pile →
Vicenza: Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class at a Local’s Home
Read our review →
Tortellini Cooking Class and Lunch with Mamma Ivana
Read our review →
Volterra: Fresh Pasta Cooking Class at a Tuscan Farmhouse
Read our review →
Prosecco and Pasta Making Class at a Local’s Home
Read our review →
Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class at a Local’s Home
Read our review →
Pienza: Tuscan Cooking Class of Homemade Pastas and Cantucci
Read our review →
Valnerina/Pasta cooking class in a 12th century location
Read our review →
Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class at a Local’s Home
Read our review →
Valencia: Fresh Pasta Workshop with Lunch/Dinner in the Center
Read our review →