When Tal Baum opened Bellina Alimentari in Ponce City Market eight years ago, she created a four-part business model: restaurant, wine bar, market and cooking classes.
“We wanted to create a space that was authentic and a full-service dining experience,” she said. “We wanted to share the art of Italian cooking, the ritual that goes with nurturing your soul while you’re eating. It’s more than following a recipe. We want to connect and share the moment on another level.”
Her classes were instantly a hit, and today her business offers more than three dozen a month.
“The pasta classes are the most popular, but we’ve recently added more classes that are wine focused,” she said. On the calendar this month is “Introduction to Amaro,” an Italian herbal liqueur.
Whether it’s a quest for a fun date night, team building, a gift card redemption or a desire to improve your skills, classes around the Atlanta area are attracting men, women, kids, couples, co-workers and friends. Some restaurants offer classes, as do specialty stores such as The Cook’s Warehouse, Williams Sonoma and Bella Cucina. There are chefs who will come to your home and even companies, such as the Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School, that take the lessons outside.
Credit: Courtesy of Vino Venue
Credit: Courtesy of Vino Venue
Like Bellina Alimentari, Vino Venue in Dunwoody has a full-service restaurant, wine bar, retail store, and wine and cooking school.
“We do a wide variety of classes but our steakhouse classes — everything from French to Texas to Italian — do very well. People are enjoying ethnic classes. We have a lot of interest in our Havana, Morocco and Thailand classes because people want to learn more about these foods,” Vino Venue managing partner Lelia Bryan said.
The night classes, which tend to attract dates and groups of girlfriends, are more entertaining, while the Saturday ones attract more serious learners who want to tackle fundamentals such as knife skills.
“People enjoy cooking together, and it’s a great way to come together,” Bryan said. “We have kids cook with their parents. It gives the kids a unique experience, and some are really cuisine savvy.”
Cook’s Warehouse in Midtown offers classes ranging from knife skills to Indian street foods to North Africa flavors to show-stopping desserts. They also bring in chefs such as Deborah VanTrece for cooking demonstrations.
Carbs got “rediscovered” during the pandemic, so baking classes are popular, said Paul Zang, general manager at Cook’s Warehouse. The most popular class, though, is “Knife Skills 101,” which teaches how to properly slice berries and remove a chicken’s backbone for the grill.
Credit: Lauren Hubbard
Credit: Lauren Hubbard
While the school attracts hard-core foodies, it also brings in people who just like doing things together. Derek Garnett and his wife, Laura, have taken lessons at Cook’s Warehouse for nearly a decade.
“We’ve built up our skills, and we tackle things that we’ve always wanted to make but didn’t know how, like beef Wellington,” he said. The Smyrna couple also enjoy the regional exploration. “It’s not just Mexican food,” he said. “It’s food from the Yucatán Peninsula so you get some of the history and broader perspective.”
His favorite part? “The assistants handle a lot of the prep and cleanup. You get to do the fun parts without having to wash the dishes.”
While some restaurants offer classes, others, others such as The Food Society and Cozymeal, act almost like a Rolodex for those wanting a private professional lesson. There are lists of chefs and the classes they offer. Potential students arrange to host a class in their home, the chef’s home or another location.
Chef Christopher Atwood co-founded The Food Society and also is associated with Cozymeal.
“Cooking is hard and messy, and it’s more fun doing it with someone who can show you the ropes. You can watch a video six times, but it’s not the same as doing it hands-on with someone who can answer your questions.” All the chefs, he added, are thoroughly vetted.
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School
With cooking shows such as “Master Junior Chef,” the younger crowd is also heading to the kitchen.
Flour Power Kids Cooking Studios in Alpharetta (and soon East Cobb) teaches basic cooking skills for youngsters and divides them by age group.
“Our baking classes are the most popular — cookies, cupcakes — but we will do a vegetable-based class as well,” said owner Kimberly Rosario. “Parents are looking for children’s programs, and there is a whole section of kids that don’t want to do sports or dance. Cooking is a life skill as much as artistic.”
While cooking is a life skill for everyone, men have traditionally claimed the grill as their particular domain. Pete Warner, CEO of Linkup Technologies, wanted to improve his barbecue skills years back but found few resources.
“I struggled for years. Everything I tried to do to get help fell short,” he said. “You can learn techniques that may be ineffective and wrong. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around.”
He finally found the recipe for success and, with some friends, won a barbecue contest.
“I got an idea to start classes that would allow students to go home and really cook barbecue. It also had to be fun,” he said. Warner eventually wrote a classroom textbook because “we also had to teach the rationale why people are doing things as well as make it hands-on.”
Warner co-founded Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School, along with Rick Pasch, a system designer with the Magnolia Home Theater, and Dave Weiss, who actually “knows how to cook,” according to their website.
There are four basic classes they teach on Saturdays: “BBQ with the Pros,” “Master Class,” “Grilling and Wine Pairing” and “Competition Boot Camp.” The entry level is “BBQ with the Pros,” which is a 10-hour class where students cook 200 pounds of brisket, ribs, pork butts and chicken on six smokers.
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School
Credit: Courtesy of Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School
The “Master Class” involves smoking a whole hog on a cinder block pit or trailer smoker. “Grilling and Wine Pairing” tends to be more of a couples activity.
“Dan is our unofficial sommelier. When we started to say wine was involved, that pretty much got women interested,” he said with a laugh. The final class is aimed at teams that want to enter contests.
The clientele range from newbies to those looking to perfect their skills.
“It’s certainly true that barbecue is a guy thing, but there are women who love to get out of the kitchen and cook in the great outdoors,” he said. “We’ve had guys say they’ve been doing it wrong for 20 years and picked up some tips.”
No matter the class or the chef, the end result, as Warner said, is for everyone to “go home happy and be able to cook a great meal.”
COOKING CLASSES
Bellina Alimentari. 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays and 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Various prices. 675 Ponce de Leon Ave., Unit 131, Atlanta. 404-330-9933, bellina-alimentari.com
Cook’s Warehouse. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays. Various prices. 1544 Piedmont Ave,. Suite 403-R, Atlanta. 404-815-4993, cookswarehouse.com
Flour Power Kids Cooking Studios. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. Various prices. 131 S. Main St., Suite G, Alpharetta. 470-760-6460, flourpowerstudios.com
Southern Thunder BBQ Cooking School. 7:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturdays. Various prices. 1473 Joyner Ave. No. 3904, Marietta. 706-510-7045, southernthunderbbq.com.
Vino Venue. Noon-9 p.m. Mondays-Wednesdays and noon-10 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Various prices. 4478 Chamblee Dunwoody Road, Atlanta. 770-668-0435, vinovenue.com
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