Eat and cook like a local: 7 cooking class experiences for travellers
Travelling has become less about ticking off landmarks and more about finding experiences that stay with you long after you fly home. A cooking class offers exactly that. It’s equal parts cultural discovery and immersive activity, reshaping how you connect with a destination.
Whether you’re grinding matcha in Uji, shaping fresh pasta in Milan or preparing local food with chefs who live the cuisine every day, these cooking workshops turn a city’s flavours into something memorable you can recreate at home. For travellers who want more than food tours, these cultural cooking lessons deliver something far more practical and rewarding.
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Korean cooking class
Learn Korean flavours and techniques through a cooking class led by local chefs. (Photo: Royal Seoul Cooking Class)
Korean cuisine’s emphasis on fermentation, balance and banchan requires understanding techniques that seem deceptively simple until you try them yourself. In Seoul, you can learn from Korean chefs in a preserved 1930s hanok that once housed Joseon palace cooks.
The Royal Seoul Cooking Class keeps the format approachable for beginners while still offering a strong sense of place. A session here feels like stepping into a living archive, where you’ll learn to prepare dishes such as pajeon, which is savoury pancakes, fresh kimchi, LA galbi and yakgwa, which is honey cookie. It’s an immersive experience for travellers who want to learn to cook abroad and understand how Korean flavours have evolved across generations.
Read more: The history of banchan, the heart of Korean dining
Japanese tea workshop
Discover the precision behind Japan’s most celebrated tea traditions with a cooking class in Uji (Photo: Fukujuen Uji Tea Workshop)
Every step matters in Japanese tea culture, from water temperature to whisking technique. For travellers, learning these details first-hand reveals why tea holds such deep meaning in daily Japanese life.
Uji earned its reputation for superior tea production by being among Japan’s first cultivation sites, and that legacy continues at Fukujuen Uji Tea Workshop. The matcha-making experience involves grinding tencha leaves with a stone mill, while the hojicha workshop lets you roast sencha or bancha over a ceramic plate. Both workshops come with lessons on brewing and snacks to enjoy with the tea you made yourself.
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Vietnamese banh mi workshop
Learn the foundations of Vietnam’s iconic street food in a banh mi cooking class (Photo: Love Kitchen Lab)
The banh mi's success lies in how Vietnamese cooks adapted French colonial ingredients into something entirely their own. Making one from scratch shows the architecture behind a sandwich that looks simple but relies on thoughtful balance.
Love Kitchen Lab in Hanoi strips away the mystique by teaching every component from the ground up. Learn to knead dough, prepare fillings, pickle vegetables and create the sauces that define this sandwich. As banh mi is often paired with Vietnamese coffee, the cooking class includes a workshop on local drinks such as egg coffee and coconut coffee.
Read more: What is it about Vietnamese cuisine that drives the whole world crazy?
Thai cooking class
Explore Thailand’s balance of heat and herbs in a cooking class that may include a local market tour (Photo: Blue Elephant Cooking School)
Cooking Thai food means learning to build flavour through pastes, broths and the interplay of sweet, sour, salty and spicy elements. Blue Elephant Cooking School in Bangkok structures its Thai cooking course around preparing four to five recipes in half a day. The ever-changing menu covers fundamentals such as chicken satay, curries, spring rolls and mango sticky rice. For a fuller experience, book the morning session, which includes a market tour that teaches you how to choose the best ingredients.
Read more: From Bangkok to Phuket: 7 must-try regional Thai dishes
Fresh pasta making class
Experience the rhythm of Italian kitchens with a cooking class in a real Milanese home (Photo: Pasta Pietro)
Fresh pasta tastes fundamentally different from dried varieties, and the sheer satisfaction of shaping dough by hand explains why this centuries-old tradition endures.
Pasta Pietro hosts intimate classes inside a real Milanese home, teaching students to shape ravioli, spaghetti and more classics before walking them through the tiramisu recipe of the founder’s nonna. After the cooking class, you’ll sit down to enjoy your handmade creations for a three-course meal paired with local wines.
Read more: Beyond bucatini: 7 quirky pasta shapes worth discovering
French pastry baking workshop
Master the building blocks of a classic patisserie in a Paris cooking class (Photo: Studio Patisserie)
A pastry class gives structure to a skill many find intimidating. When you understand proofing, lamination and heat, you develop a much deeper appreciation for croissants and other French pastries.
Studio Patisserie in Paris offers beginner and intermediate workshops. In the croissant class, you’ll learn to make both classic croissants and pain au chocolat. The bi-colour croissant workshop adds visual elements for those who’ve already mastered the basics, while separate classes cover macarons, eclairs and choux pastry.
Read more: Why is the croissant always the inspiration of five-star bakeries?
Oaxacan mole cooking class
Understand Mexico’s storied sauce through a cooking class that begins in a bustling market (Photo: Etnofood)
A Mexican cooking class introduces you to depth and complexity built through time and effort. Mole, in particular, teaches patience, technique and the importance of ingredients sourced at their freshest.
In Oaxaca, Etnofood begins its mole-making class with a visit to a local market to source dried chillies and other ingredients directly from producers. Back in the kitchen, you’ll grind, roast and build the sauce while learning the essential role that mole plays in Oaxacan gastronomy.
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