PASTA-MAKING CLASSES · ITALY
Flour, eggs, a rolling pin and a nonna.
Tagliatelle in Bologna, orecchiette on a Bari back street, gnocchi above the Bay of Naples, fettuccine and spritz near Piazza Navona. Real reviews of the pasta-making classes and cucina tours worth booking, the length of Italy.
Worth the trip on their own
Three shapes, three regions, all by hand.
Every region of Italy has its pasta and its way of making it. Bologna rolls the sfoglia thin for tagliatelle; Puglia drags semolina into orecchiette; the Amalfi Coast presses gnocchi with a sea view. Learn the one you came for from the people who grew up making it.
Emilia-Romagna
Tagliatelle al ragù
Bologna is where egg pasta is religion. In a home kitchen you learn to make the sfoglia by hand, roll it thin enough to read a newspaper through, cut the ribbons and fold the tortellini, while the ragù the city is famous for simmers on the stove. No machine, no shortcuts, just a rolling pin and a wooden board.
- 1 Bologna: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
- 2 Bologna: Pasta Tagliatelle Ragu Cooking Class with Spritz
- 3 Bologna: Pasta Tagliatelle al Ragu Cooking Class with Wine
Puglia
Orecchiette by hand
On the back streets of Bari, the nonne still shape orecchiette in their doorways, dragging the dough into little ears with a thumb and a knife. A class here is a lesson in semolina-and-water pasta, no eggs, plus the cime di rapa to dress it. The rhythm takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to perfect.
- 1 Bari: Pasta Experience Walking Tour
- 2 Bari: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
- 3 Bari: Bike Tour & Pasta Making Experience
The Amalfi Coast
Gnocchi & lemon
Above the Bay of Naples, pasta comes with a view. At a farm or a terrace kitchen you press potato gnocchi by the forkful, roll ravioli stuffed with local ricotta, and cook with lemons picked off the tree that morning. Limoncello at the end is practically compulsory.
- 1 Pasta & Traditional Sorrento Cuisine with Pickup – 100% Hands On
- 2 Pasta and Pizza Master Class with Pick Up in Sorrento
- 3 Authentic Pasta & Pizza Cooking Class with Sorrento Coast Pickup
If you only book one
The class more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every pasta class in Italy on the site, this is the one people come home telling everyone they know to book.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Pasta Classes Right Now
Roman fettuccine with a spritz, Bologna tagliatelle and ragù, a canal-side kitchen in Venice, gnocchi over the Sorrento coast. The classes travellers are happiest they booked.
Start with a city
The best pasta classes, city by city.
Rome for the fettuccine, Bologna for the tagliatelle, Sorrento for the gnocchi. Pick the city you are headed to and we will show you the classes worth booking there.
Where to roll up your sleeves
Which kind of class is your kind of day?
A quick city class between sights, a pilgrimage to the home of fresh pasta, or a whole day in a lemon grove. Three regions Italy makes pasta in three very different ways, each its own kind of afternoon.
Bologna
Where egg pasta is a religion.
They call it Bologna la Grassa, Bologna the Fat, and the pasta is why. In a home kitchen you mix the dough, roll the sfoglia thin enough to read through, and cut the tagliatelle or fold the tortellini by hand while a true ragù simmers on the stove. No machine, no shortcuts, just a rolling pin and a board worn smooth by years.
See the best Bologna pasta classes →Rome
Fettuccine, a spritz, then tiramisù.
Rome makes the easiest first class in Italy. A couple of hours in a kitchen near Piazza Navona or the Pantheon: mix and roll fresh fettuccine, fold a few ravioli, learn a proper cacio e pepe, and finish by whisking your own tiramisù, with a spritz or a glass of Frascati in hand the whole time. Many classes start with a quick market run for the ingredients.
See the best Rome pasta classes →The Amalfi Coast
Gnocchi, then lemons off the tree.
Above Sorrento and the Amalfi towns, a pasta class comes with a sea. At a hillside farm or a terrace kitchen you press potato gnocchi and fold ravioli with local ricotta, then walk the grove to pick the lemons that go into lunch and the limoncello after it. Long table, longer view, the cooks who taught you pouring the wine.
See the best Amalfi Coast classes →Venice
Fresh pasta beside a quiet canal.
Once the day-trippers thin out, Venice slows down. A class in a residential sestiere or a palazzo kitchen has you rolling fresh pasta and folding tiramisù with a host who shops the Rialto market, a glass of Veneto white poured before you have even washed the flour off your hands.
- 1 Venice: Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine
- 2 Pasta and Tiramisu Cooking Class with Wine in Venice
- 3 Venice: Jewish Ghetto & Cannaregio Area Food Tour: Pasta Wine Gelato and More!
By the hour
How much of the day goes to the kitchen?
Two hours and fresh pasta in Rome, a market-and-board morning in Bologna, a whole day in a Sorrento lemon grove. Pick the one that fits the time you have, and the kind of afternoon you are after.
A spare evening
Rome, pasta in two hours.A short evening class near Piazza Navona: roll fettuccine, fold a few ravioli, pour a spritz, finish with tiramisù. You eat what you made and still make your dinner reservation.
A morning at it
Bologna, market then board.A half-day in Emilia: walk the Quadrilatero for Parmigiano and mortadella, then back to the kitchen to learn the tagliatelle and tortellini the city is named for, ragù simmering all the while.
The whole day
Sorrento, a day in a lemon grove.A full day above the Bay of Naples: gnocchi and ravioli by hand at a family farm, lemons off the tree for the limoncello, lunch at a long table with the cooks who taught you.
Turin & Piedmont
The north folds its pasta into parcels.
Piedmont does pasta differently. Here it is agnolotti del plin, tiny pinched parcels filled with roast meat, and tajarin, egg yolks turned into threads of golden pasta. A Turin class teaches the pinch and the roll under the arcades of a city that takes its food, and its slow pace, seriously. Often with a glass of Barbera and a square of gianduja to finish.
See all 6 Turin pasta classes →By city
Pick a city to cook in.
Rome for fresh pasta and a spritz. Bologna for the real sfoglia. Venice for a canal-side kitchen. Sorrento for gnocchi and lemons. Verona for the old town. Sicily for busiate and sweets.
More of Italy
More towns worth a long table.
Florence for Tuscan pici, Bari for orecchiette by hand, Turin for agnolotti, Sardinia for culurgiones. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
One perfect food day
Market, kitchen, table, in that order.
The best Italian classes are a whole day in three acts: shop the market in the morning, make the pasta by hand at midday, sit down and eat it at night. Here is how the day flows.
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