The best cooking classes in Sydney

Class: Authentic Italian pasta making
Good for: Aspiring pasta Nonna’s and chic tomato girls
Skills learned: Most importantly, the Italian attitude

If you’ve dined at I Maccheroni – the intimate neighbourhood restaurant on the border of Paddington and Woollahra – you’ll know that the chefs here are the real deal. And if you’ve dreamed of recreating the perfectly pillowy gnocchi or silky pasta at home, you’re in luck – because the chefs themselves offer authentic Italian cooking classes every Saturday. $120 will score you a hands-on cooking class, plus a glass of wine on arrival, divinely Italian coffee and a lunch featuring your very own creations. 

Time Out tip: Once you’re done with lunch, make like the Italians and head for a stroll – the streets of Paddington are some of the prettiest in the city.

Class: Wholesome cooking classes transforming rescued ingredients into nourishing meals for people in need
Good for: Teams who are keen to give back
Skills learned: Fun food waste facts, root-to-shoot cooking tips, simple family-sized recipes

As Australia's leading food rescue organisation, the team at OzHarvest know a thing or two about turning unloved ingredients into bloody good grub. Alongside their community food banks, food truck and impact-driven restaurant Refettorio, the good people at OzHarvest run corporate cooking classes: helping groups of do-gooding Sydneysiders cook nourishing meals for people in need. The ingredients you’ll use will have otherwise found their way to landfill, so you’re not only helping to feed Sydney’s vulnerable community, but you’re helping to save the planet while you’re at it. Plus, you’ll learn fun (and shocking) food waste facts and pick up valuable zero-waste kitchen skills, like sauteeing your onions with salt and pepper for extra flavour. 

On our visit, half the team made lentil, carrot and cheese fatayers, and were guided through the entire cooking process from rolling the dough to shaping the pastry pies. Team two was on lamb kofta duty and created a fresh cauliflower and bulgur salad to serve alongside. We dished our day’s work into boxes that would then go on to feed 15 families. Plus, we got to tuck into our creations too: and trust us, they were pretty darn tasty.

Time Out tip: Swap your suits for the day and convince your boss to book a session for you and your team. OzHarvest runs Cooking For A Cause sessions every weekday at their HQ in Alexandra for up to 80 people. Your dollars go the extra mile and will help OzHarvest with its goal of halving food waste by 2030 while helping to feed those in need.

Class: Preserving for the season: pickles and chutney
Good for: Thrifty cooks who hate waste 
Skills learned: Brine ratios, heat-sealing jars and understanding bacteria.

Pickles aren’t just the tangy green addition to a cheeseburger, and at the Cornersmith Cooking School, you’ll learn a vinegary brine can preserve all kinds of fruits and vegetables, from grapes to cauliflower and even lettuce. When Time Out donned an apron for the three-hour evening workshop, we also whipped up a spicy chutney and flavoured vinegars with produce donated from the neighbours’ gardens.

Our preserving mastermind for the evening was Mrs Cornersmith herself, Alex Elliott-Howery. The self-titled ‘crazy pickle lady’ (and co-founder of the now sadly closed Cornersmith Café) invited us to kick off the evening by tucking into a meal, which showcased some of Cornersmith’s bestsellers with crusty bread. We then split up the full house into groups of four before diving right in. The night has a relaxed approach, with generous as-you-go taste tests, glasses of Grenache and Alex’s warm humour.

As we chopped pears for the lemon and rosemary chutney, and fennel for pickling, we learnt how to brighten a brine with turmeric, seal jars with boiling water, and to match seasonal produce with different kinds of vinegar. You leave the class full of facts and delicious salads and spreads from the Cornersmith menu. You’re also armed for the apocalypse with your jars of preserved goods ready for the pantry.

Time Out tip: This year, the Cornersmith team will be be popping up at venues across the city – though they'll be based mainly out of Strathfield's FoodLab Kitchen. To stay in the loop, we'd suggest signing up to the Cornersmith newsletter via their website.

Class: Seafood Basics
Good for: Lovers of the fruits of the ocean
Skills learned: How to handle fish and shellfish straight from the market and filleting whole snapper.

While it’s a fish market and dining/tourist destination in the day, by night the Sydney Seafood School swings into action, transforming into a mini seafood-bent culinary school. We start our class with an interactive demonstration that takes us through an agenda for the evening: crumbed snapper fillets, blue crab and vermicelli salad, clams with tomato sauce and squid with lemon and olive oil dressing.

This tutorial is a hands-on cooking session in a kitchen not far from the cooking show set. Working in groups of four to six, our team has a university student, 60-year-old retired mother and everyone in between. We were excited to show off our newfound culinary expertise and got down to slicing squids and chopping crabs right away. If you’re a little uncertain, there are chef’s assistants floating around to guide everyone along the way, which makes the whole experience completely stress-free, even for the rookies in the room.

Then comes the highlight of the night: time to dig into the oceanic feast. We enjoy our own dishes in a cosy dining room and everyone is rewarded with a complimentary wine as a much-deserved treat for our hard work.

Time Out tip: Keep an eye out classes with five star chefs including Giovanni Pilu, Ross Lusted and Danielle Alvarez. 

Class: Expert tuition for every kind of cuisine, Vive Cooking School
Good for: Beginners to confident home cooks
Skills learned: Everything: from basic knife skills to expert techniques

Founded by a ridiculously friendly, ridiculously talented French-born chef, this is the cooking school to turn to if you want to upskill in a particular type of cuisine. Keen to master making French desserts, authentic Italian ravioli or the perfect Singapore Chilli mud crab? This is your place.

When we visited, we learnt the art of making Spanish paella, and were coached through everything from slicing onions to shelling prawns – before sitting down to enjoy our fresh-as European feast.

There’s nothing here that you couldn’t successfully replicate at home, and the team offers a masterful balance of support and freedom – so you feel like you’re a thriving chef, but with expert tuition on tap. It’s also a good mix of hands-on-action and demonstrations – so you can watch the pros get at it before you jump in and have a stab.

The school has a very slick setup, with Koi knives and Smeg appliances at every workstation down the long marble central bench. The location – in a glass cube in the middle of the Cannery in Rosebery – gives you easy access to grocery stores to stock up on ingredients once you’ve finished your class and are feeling inspired.

Vive Cooking School has got a jam-packed line-up of rotating classes pitched at cooks with differing levels of ambition and one-offs from special guests – they’ve even hosted Black Star Pastry’s Chris Thé, teaching the secrets of his famous strawberry watermelon cake.

Time Out tip: The school is fully licensed, so we’d recommend enjoying a glass of wine (not three) while you’re cooking to help the creative juices flow.