Cooking Classes in Venice Italy

Your cooking classes in Venice Italy will be the best experience to understand what Italian food is. I invite you at my Venice apartment.  I organize cooking lessons in Venice for anyone interested in learning the basics of Italian cuisine. My classes will be in English and a practical cooking experience. By the end of the course, you will be able to cook dishes like fresh homemade pasta, lasagne, potato gnocchi, risotto, and tiramisù dessert. Previous experience is not required. My cooking classes will be held in my home, a typical Venetian house, which is mainly geared towards hospitality. The classes start at 9.00 a.m. I explain the day’s menu and tell the history and tradition of the Italian dishes we will be making. Then we cook lunch and eat together. Good Italian wine is an essential item on my table.

private cooking classes      175 € per person     6 hours together

home-cooking recipes and good choice of Italian wine  

            minimum 2 people

What shall we cook? Examples of Italian recipes we can cook together

During my cooking classes in Venice Italy, I’ll show you how to make classic Italian food using fresh, locally sourced ingredients bought from the Rialto market. We’ll prepare fish, meat or vegetarian menus, or special dishes for religious or dietary reasons. In each lesson, 4 recipes are prepared from a list of suggested dishes.

Here some examples of dishes we can cook together:  home-made fresh pasta from scratch with home-made fresh sauce; fish or veg risotto; home-made potato gnocchi with home-made fresh sauce; eggplant parmigiana; local fish ( cuttlefish with ink, sea bream, mackerel), Venetian deep-fried meatballs, home-made Tiramisù dessert

Lunch with some good Italian wine.

Italy has an incredible variety of wine. You’ll get the chance to try some typical local varieties such as Prosecco, Valpolicella, Recioto, Sauvignon, Tocai, Garganega, Moscato and Lugana as an accompaniment to the food we’ll cook. Learning to cook also means knowing how to choose the right wine. In Venice, for example, a “fish risotto” is accompanied by a Prosecco wine and “parmigiana” with the red Valpolicella wine.

Cooking school in Venice Italy: the Mediterranean diet

My recipes use ingredients typical of the Mediterranean diet: extra virgin olive oil, fish rather than meat, seasonal vegetables bought at the local market, fresh homemade pasta, Italian rice and fresh or dried legumes  ̶  nothing frozen! The eggs I buy are from shops supplied by small farms, the cheeses local varieties made from milk produced in the Italian Alps and the meat always ‘made in Italy’. I use salt sparingly and create flavour with a range of fresh herbs and spices. And I know the best places to buy wine.

Venetian recipes

Anyone interested in local cuisine can try out some traditional fish- or meat-based recipes. Many Venetian staples are low cost:  risi e bisi (risotto with peas), sarde in saor (sardines marinated in onions and vinegar), seafood risotto (with mussels and clams), baccalà mantecato (salted codfish cooked in milk), seppie con il nero (cuttlefish cooked in their ink), pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans), fegato alla veneziana (veal liver cooked with onions and served with polenta), artichoke hearts, bigoi in salsa (spaghetti with an anchovy and onion sauce). All these dishes are both delicious and easy to prepare but quite difficult to find in restaurants, where the focus is more international. Then there are sweet Venetian specialities: tiramisu, made with creamy mascarpone and cocoa; frittelle and galani (treats eaten during Carnevale); and zaeti – biscuits made with polenta flour. During my cooking classes in Venice Italy I always offer to my guests some Venetian biscuits or pastries or cakes.

Local fish

We are lucky enough to have excellent fish all year round in Venice, fresh from the Venetian lagoon and the Adriatic Sea. Local clams and mussels are used to make risottos or spaghetti sauces all over Italy. Cuttlefish are typical of the Adriatic and are caught in the lagoon during the summer. Gilthead bream and seabass are so flavoursome, they can be cooked in the oven and served with just a drizzle of olive oil. In Venice, squid are deep fried with shrimp or baked in the oven with potatoes; mackerel – a highly nutritious blue fish – is cooked with garlic and vinegar (it’s impossible to describe the flavour  ̶  you just have to try it!); tonno rosso is tuna stewed with tomatoes and peppers and eaten with fresh pasta; and sardines, caught in great quantities, are fried or baked in an onion and garlic marinade. During my cooking classes in Venice Italy, I always suggest to my guests to try fish risotto with Venetian clams and mussels.

Meat-based recipes

Venice is not famous for its meat-based cuisine, but there is one recipe you must try: meatballs. Venetian meatballs, unlike those from other parts of Italy, are fried in oil. Made from minced beef and potatoes and with a distinctive squashed shape, they are so delicious you can never stop at one (especially when you’re in a bar with a group of friends drinking a glass of good wine). Another Venetian speciality is liver and onions, or fegato alla veneziana. This was once peasant food (offal was snubbed by the rich), but today it is extremely expensive. Served with polenta, it is easy to prepare and its distinctive flavour will appeal to people who like simple, traditional fare.

Seasonal vegetables from the island of Sant’Erasmo

Not familiar with our local vegetables? My cooking classes in Venice Italy will be an opportunity to try it.Sant’Erasmo, an island located in the north of the Venetian Lagoon, is completely given over to agriculture: small family-run farms grow fruit and vegetables of the highest quality. The asparagus, artichokes, peas, aubergines, chicory and pumpkin grown on the island are sought after throughout Italy. The farmers of Sant’Erasmo (just over 30 families) sell their produce at the Rialto market. Venice offers something that’s impossible to find elsewhere in Italy and which any visitor to the city should try – fondi di carciofo (artichoke bases). After removing the artichoke head and stalk, and trimming all the leaves, what is left is a disc-shaped base. Artichoke bases are stored in water and lemon, and then stewed in a pan with garlic, olive oil and fresh parsley. They make an excellent risotto, too.

A video by Pasta Grannies about Italian recipes: 

Have a look at this video by Pasta Grannies, one of my favourite YouTube Channels. It gives useful insights into Venice, local recipes and Venetian apartments, as well as showing how friendly the locals can be!

My kitchen

My kitchen is very well equipped with a large worktable, a gas oven and stovetop and many utensils. None of my recipes requires special appliances or instruments. I do have a food processor but I never use it! I prefer to prepare everything by hand. I have a pasta machine (manual Italian pasta machine by Imperia) for rolling pasta dough – a simple model you can buy anywhere, as well as a pasta cutter, a ravioli mold, a blender, stainless steel saucepans with thick bases and good kitchen knives. Are you ready to start your cooking classes in Venice Italy?