Florence: Pasta & Tiramisu Cooking Class with Unlimited Wine

4.88

(189 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

The first thing I noticed was the clatter of pans echoing off old stone walls—Florence feels different when you’re inside a kitchen instead of just wandering the streets. Our cooking class was set above Via dei Servi, with this little window that peeked out toward the Duomo. The chef (Francesca, she insisted we use her name) greeted us with flour-dusted hands and a grin that made me feel like I’d wandered into someone’s home rather than a restaurant. She spoke mostly Italian, but our guide Marco translated with a kind of dry humor—he teased me for using way too much flour at first. I didn’t mind.

Kneading pasta dough is oddly calming—there’s something about the rhythm and the soft give under your palms. The room smelled like eggs and wheat, and every so often someone would laugh when their dough stuck or tore. Francesca showed us how to roll it thin enough to see light through it (“like a silk scarf,” she said). We sipped Tuscan wine between steps—honestly, more than I expected—and Marco told stories about Florentine families who’ve passed these recipes down for generations. I tried saying “tiramisu” with an Italian accent; Francesca laughed and corrected me gently. Still not sure I got it right.

Making tiramisu felt less precise—just layering espresso-soaked biscuits and mascarpone in a dish while the city buzzed below us. The espresso was strong enough to make my hands shake a little. When we finally sat down together to eat everything we’d made, it felt like some kind of celebration even though none of us knew each other before that morning. There was more wine (unlimited really means unlimited here), plates passed around, people asking for seconds without any hesitation.

I still think about how the sunlight hit the table as we ate, or maybe it was just the wine making everything softer around the edges. It wasn’t perfect—I dropped half my tiramisu on my shirt—but honestly that made it better somehow.