Ask anyone who has taken a cooking class in Italy what they remember. It’s almost never the recipe. It’s the flour on the table. The conversation that drifted from technique to family history. The plate of pasta they made themselves and ate together at the end.
That’s the part of a private cooking class in Tuscany that doesn’t make it onto the booking page — and it’s the part I care about most.
A class with me usually starts the same way: hands washed, aprons on, a quick look at what’s on the table. Flour from a Tuscan mill. Eggs from a producer I trust. Maybe a piece of pecorino, a bottle of olive oil, herbs picked that morning. Before we touch anything, I tell you what we’re going to make and where each ingredient came from. Context first. Cooking second.
Then we get to work.
Most classes revolve around fresh pasta — pici, tortelli, pappardelle, gnocchi — because it’s the most rewarding place to start. You learn to feel when the dough is ready under your hands. You roll, you shape, you make mistakes, you fix them. The kitchen becomes loud and a little messy. That’s the point.
While we work, we talk. About Maremma, the region I was born in. About acquacotta and slow ragùs and why certain dishes only exist a few valleys apart. About my own path: the years at Castello Banfi in Montalcino, the season in Sydney that taught me to cook in English, the Cook IT project I launched in 2024. None of it feels like a lecture. It feels like a long lunch with someone who happens to know the answers.
The class always ends at the table. We eat what we’ve made, paired with a glass of local wine — often from one of the Maremma wineries I work with. By that point, you’re not really a student anymore. You’re just someone enjoying dinner with new friends.
This is what I mean by an authentic cooking experience in Maremma: not a performance, not a checklist of techniques, but a few hours that feel like the Tuscany people travel here hoping to find.
Choose your format — in-villa, pasta-focused, for the family, or for two — and let’s plan it together.
