Why a Head Chef's Cooking Class in Florence Costs More

Most people picture the same thing when they book a cooking class in Florence. A long room with fifteen or twenty other travellers. A host shows each step at the front, then you try it at your own board before the plates come out. You eat what you made with a glass of wine and take a photo with flour on your hands.

Plenty of those classes are good fun, and they cost less than ours. We have no problem with that. This post is about what the extra money pays for when the person teaching you is a head chef, because a guest asked us that question recently and it deserves a full answer.

What happened when a guest compared prices

Not long ago a guest told us they had already done a cooking class in Florence: a big market tour with a class afterwards, at about half our price. They had enjoyed it, and they wanted to know why ours cost more.

We told them who would be teaching. Every one of our classes is designed and taught by one of us two, Endri or Marsel, and our day job is running the kitchens of two agriturismi in the hills outside Florence. Their view of the price changed as soon as they heard that, and the rest of this post is the longer version of what we told them.

What changes when a head chef teaches the class?

A head chef runs a kitchen. They plan the menu, order the produce, train the cooks and answer for every plate that goes out. Our weeks include wedding feasts for two hundred guests and live pasta shows. Endri also spent six years as an artisan baker before becoming a head chef, which is a long time spent judging dough by hand.

In a class, that experience shows up in small moments. A chef can tell by touch that your dough needs another minute of kneading, or a spoon of water, before you notice anything is wrong. They see the sheet starting to tear at the edge and show you why it happened. They explain the reason behind each step, so you can repeat it in your own kitchen without us.

Big-group class vs a head chef’s table

These are the differences we see most often. Group sizes and formats vary a lot in Florence, so check the details of any class you are considering, ours included.

• Who teaches. In a large class the teacher can be a host or an instructor who follows a set script. At ours it is Endri or Marsel at every class, including the market tour, private classes and the online class.
• Group size. Larger classes in Florence can have twenty people or more around one teacher. The Chef’s Table takes eight guests at most, and Mercato & Mani takes six.
• Technique. A big class shows each step once, from the front. At a table of eight you learn on your own dough, from how firm it should feel before it rests to how to seal a raviolo so no air stays inside. On a humid day we change the flour, and we tell you why.
• Flavour. Good pasta depends on steps that are easy to skip in a hurry, like salting the water properly and finishing the pasta in the pan with a splash of its cooking water. A chef tastes with you and adjusts as you go, the same way they would in their own kitchen.
• Ingredients. A head chef buys produce every week for a working kitchen and knows what is good in which month. On Mercato & Mani we shop at Sant’Ambrogio together, and in late October and November the stalls have porcini and the first green new-season olive oil.
• Attention. With eight people, a chef can reach you in the half minute when your dough tears, which is when most of the learning happens. With twenty, you wait your turn.
• What you take home. We email the recipes after the class, and any pasta you don’t finish is dried and bagged for you to take back to your hotel.

Is the extra cost worth it?

It depends on what you want from the afternoon. If the goal is a cheap, sociable evening with a dozen other travellers, a larger class is a fair choice and you should book one. If you want to make fresh pasta at home next month without a recipe video open, the extra money pays for someone who cooks for a living standing next to you while you learn.

For the numbers, our breakdown of what pasta classes in Florence cost covers the price ranges and what should be included at each. If you are comparing several schools, the seven questions to ask before booking apply to any class, including ours.

Book a class with a head chef in Florence

Every class we run is taught by one of us, from the three-hour Chef’s Table in our Oltrarno kitchen to private classes and the live online class. If the class you were comparing was a market class, Mercato & Mani starts at Sant’Ambrogio market with one of us and ends at our table, with six guests at most.

You can compare all of them on our classes page. Send us your dates and we will tell you what is still open. We usually reply within a few hours, weekends included.