Cooking Class - Summertime Italian Picnic

We didn't have Chef Peter. The young lady who was our teacher tried very hard to handle 16 people cooking in a space that could handle 10-12 . I understand this is a profit making business, but because we were jammed together, we were jockeying for position the entire night. We weren't there to team build as we 9 others, we were there to have a cooking lesson. We were crowded, and with no recipes printed out for us, we were flying blind most of the night. Recipes should be available during the class, not emailed to you later....which by the way I have still not gotten. One of the main reasons we took the class was for the gelato part of the lesson. Instead it was already premade and she told us we'd get the recipes later. We had to ask how it was made, she ran thru it super quickly and none of us felt we got what we needed. We were rushed, then they took a 15 min break in the middle....which would have been the perfect time to demonstrate the gelato recipe and serve the premade batch at the end, but instead we were told to go look around the store and "shop" while they cleaned up.Because we needed to be finished by 9 and going out the door, it gave very little time, esp for such a big group, to ask questions. Our food was good, but I felt like we paid to make our own dinner......yes i did learn something, but I don't think it was worth the money. I won't be signing up for a class at that location again.

Our experience was decent overall, but a few adjustments could have significantly improved it. To start, it would have been helpful if the chef demonstrated each step of the cooking process before asking participants to complete it. Instead, demonstrations were done individually at each station, which led to extended downtime. During that time, some groups made assumptions—like how finely to chop vegetables or which course those ingredients go in—only to later learn they had done it incorrectly. A brief group demo before each step could have prevented confusion and kept things moving more smoothly. For the main pasta carbonara dish, we weren’t involved in key parts of the process, such as boiling the noodles, mixing the eggs and cheese, or cooking the bacon. These steps were completed for us without explanation of quantities or techniques, which made it difficult to understand how to recreate the dish at home. While I understand that time constraints may require some steps to be pre-prepared, it would have been nice to be more involved or at least receive guidance on how to replicate the dish ourselves. There was also a 30-minute break for shopping, which felt unnecessary since most attendees had already shopped beforehand or could have done so afterward. This break might have been more welcome if we hadn’t already experienced so much downtime waiting for instructions. Several participants asked for recipe details during the class, and we were told they would be emailed afterward. Unfortunately, that follow-up never happened. Without ingredient quantities or a written recipe, it’s hard to recreate the dishes we made. In previous Cozymeal classes I’ve attended, chefs shared background on the dishes—such as cultural context, ingredient history, or cooking tips and tricks. That kind of insight adds a lot of value and depth to the experience. This class didn’t include any of that, which made it feel more surface-level than others. Lastly, we noticed that most of the leftovers were given to staff rather than participants. Given the cost of the class (over $100 per person), it would have been appreciated if guests had the option to take home their own portions.

Julia was great, don’t know about chef Peter as Julia was the teacher. Fun event that was well done. Brett