Here’s A Cooking Class in Bologna That’s NOT Touristy!

I wasn’t planning to take a cooking class in Bologna because of how touristy most “cooking classes” seem. It’s always fifteen clueless foreigners standing around a polished counter at some cooking school.

But I didn’t want to get tipsy while eating pasta with fellow Americans (although that is fun, not gonna lie). I wanted to get tipsy while eating pasta with a local.

And after hours of perusing through reviews, I found the perfect class.

If you’re also looking for a truly immersive, non-touristy cooking class in Bologna, you’ll want to keep reading.

I freakin’ loved my time learning how to make pasta in a local’s home, and I’m here to walk you through exactly what happened, so you know if it’s for you or not.

Ready to skip the review and book? Automatically book with my discount code to get 10% OFF, but keep reading for the full review!

Why I Chose This Bologna Cooking Class

I spent an hour looking through the reviews and photos of over a dozen cooking classes in Bologna.

All of them looked great and had amazing reviews, but I wanted to avoid those touristy classes that take place in a school with 15 other people.

That is why I decided to go with this one, a cooking class in a local’s home.

The price was higher than the rest, but it also looked like the only private option with a chance to really connect with a local.

Class Overview

• Duration: 4 hours (3 for cooking and another for eating)
• Group size: Literally just you and the teacher in her home
• Includes: Pasta lesson + lunch + wine
• Top Advantage: It’s in someone’s home instead of a cooking school
• Discount Available: Include the code PETRA09 when you book for 10% OFF

How the Booking Process Works

I’m happy to say that while I accidentally got matched with my host, Veronica, (among many other local home cooks) on GetYourGuide, you can now book your class directly with her!

This way, you’re guaranteed an equally amazing time as I had.

These classes happen at lunch (10 AM) or dinner (5 PM). Once you’ve booked the experience, Veronica will be in contact to give you the address and further instructions to get there.

Inside the Experience: What Happens During the Class

We were a few floors up inside a typical apartment in Italy, with an elevator shaft in the center, and a stairway hugging the shaft up the floors.

Veronica was out in the hallway waiting to bring us up to her home.

The apartment was amazingly cozy.

There were light blue frescoes on the upper parts of the wall and the ceiling. She had turned on light Italian music for us in the background. I was loving the mood.

A massive table was set up in the middle, with flour, eggs, boards, and mattarellos (rolling pins). My favorite part was the huge, barless window that shows a golden ginkgo tree right outside. It was magical.

Making Pasta From Scratch

If you think you might be wasting your money making pasta that doesn’t form, breathe.

I don’t know about the other hosts, but Veronica was walking me through everything so thoroughly that it’s impossible to mess up. The hosts are there to support you all the way!

We started by weighing the right amount of flour to durum wheat.

I also found out at this point that not all green Bolognese pastas are made from spinach! In the small region where Veronica is from, they use dried nettle! 🤯

Then I had to create a fountain with the flour, leaving a hole in the middle, where the eggs would go in. Then we’d beat the eggs inside the fountain while slowly mixing the flour from the inside.

If you’ve never made pasta before, it’s a really strange texture. I expected it to feel like pastry dough, but it was quite softer than that. (I know, I know. I’d been living under a rock 😂)

Waiting for the Dough to Set

After I’ve kneaded my dough to (near) perfection, Veronica wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge to set. Meanwhile, she started preparing the ricotta filling for the tortelloni.

I went over to the kitchen, and we talked about our lives as she was cutting up some parsley.

She also made us some coffee and brought out some cantucci (we all know them as biscotti… but that’s another post 😅) that her mom had made.

It was such a nice coincidence that I was headed to Florence the day after class, so those cantucci I got to try were like a preview!

Creating the Sfoglia

After about 30 minutes, we started rolling out the dough to make a sfoglia.

Little did I know, this was the most exhausting part of the process, and a little nerve-racking. You see, the thinner it got, the more it felt like a thin sheet of fabric, and you’d feel like you’re about to tear it.

One piece of wisdom from Veronica that she got from her mom and her nonna, “Don’t stress about making it perfect. You’ll eat it anyway!”

In Bologna, they say, if you hold the sfoglia up against San Luca, but you can’t see San Luca, then it’s not thin enough. So I kept rolling on for what felt like hours. (It was closer to 40 minutes.)

Filling and Folding the Tortelloni

This was the most fun part! After rolling up a perfect sfoglia, I got to cut it into small squares. Each of these squares will become one tortelloni.

I love a tedious task, so filling each square with the perfect amount of ricotta was like a wonderland. 🤣

Meanwhile, Veronica rolled up the green sfoglia and cut it up into strips of tagliatelle. Any scraps left from the edges of my sfoglia, she mixed into the pile of tagliatelle.

Then she taught me how to fold the little squares into tortellonis. They were about the perfect size for my hands to fold.

I honestly couldn’t imagine how hard it must be to make tortellini, which are like… half the size.

Lunch Together With Wine and More Stories

After I finished folding all the tortelloni, I helped Veronica set the table while she cooked two dishes with the pasta we just made. She also brought out a bottle of sparkling white wine for us to share.

This was exactly at 1 PM, by the way.

For another hour or so, we enjoyed a few plates of Tortelloni Burro e Salvia (butter and sage) and Tagliatelle al Ragù, the recipe for which I now have in my email inbox (a sweet follow-up from Veronica). Both were absolutely delicious.

Know Before You Go

If you click really well with Veronica (like I did), your lunch might run a few minutes late. I don’t recommend having anything time-sensitive booked directly after the class.

If you have a limited time in Bologna, I recommend booking the dinner session. This way, you can enjoy the experience without having to rush to the next thing on your schedule. It’s a good way to end a day.

Would I Recommend This Bologna Cooking Class?

It depends on what you’re looking to get from it. If you value completely immersing yourself in a foreign city, connecting only with the locals, and learning their ways, then I highly recommend it.

I’d also say you’ll have to be quite comfortable with striking up a conversation with a stranger if you plan to book this class on your own.

This has little to do with being an introvert vs. an extrovert. I’m very introverted, but I somehow open up when I’m abroad, so I had a blast talking to Veronica.

If the thought of being alone in a room with a foreigner for 3-4 hours makes you want to hide under your bed, maybe this cooking class is not for you.

However, if you’re okay with that, and you want to cook in a real Italian kitchen with a warm local and no other tourists, you’ll love this!

Cooking School Alternatives

You can’t handle being alone with the host, or you love connecting with fellow travelers on a trip?

Below are the top three other classes that I was considering before booking the private one. They all come highly recommended, just not my style.

Did you reach out to Veronica, and she’s fully-booked for your travel dates?

Expand your chances by booking through this calendar below, so you can get matched with more home cooks. (This was how I found Veronica!) Too bad I can’t give you a discount for this, though.

What Else Should You Eat in Bologna?

With this class, you’ll get to try Tagliatelle al Ragù and Tortelloni Burro e Salvia, but these aren’t all the food Bologna has to offer.

Here are some of the best Bolognese menus you should look out for, and here are my favorite restaurants in the city, where you can try those dishes.

Not sure how to squeeze this class into your schedule? I recommend doing the dinner class on your last day, so you won’t have to rush out of class to something else. I do that in my 2-day itinerary for Bologna, which of course, you can use!

Don’t forget to bookmark my Italy Cultural Travel page for my upcoming guides!

Get Ready For Your Trip to Italy

Below are resources to help you get ready for your trip.

• Make sure you protect your trip with a travel insurance.
• Stay connected in Italy with this eSIM
• Must-have Apps: City Mapper, Google Maps, WhatsApp

Grab My Trip-Planner Template

To help streamline your planning process, I’ve decided to share the template I’ve created and have personally used to plan my own trips. You can grab a copy of it for free below!

📌 Pin this for later

Sharing is caring!