Palermo Cooking Classes
Palermo cooking classes teach the dishes of the markets they start in: pasta con le sarde, caponata, arancine shaped by hand, cannoli filled at the table, in family kitchens, villas and cooking schools across the old city. Compare the top-rated classes below, then read our notes.
Formats: market tour and cooking class with lunch; pasta and tiramisù with wine; pizza and gelato evenings; ravioli and cannoli small-group classes; classes in a noble villa; arancina and cassatella masterclasses.
What you learn: busiate or fresh pasta by hand, the sweet-sour of caponata, pasta con le sarde with wild fennel, shaping and frying arancine, and the cannolo shell and ricotta cream.
Price and time: roughly 55 to 115 dollars for two and a half to five hours; market classes are the longer ones.
Market-to-table
The best Palermo classes begin at Ballarò or the Capo with the host buying the day’s fish, vegetables and ricotta, then move to a kitchen for three or four dishes: a caponata, a pasta, a main and a sweet, eaten together with wine. Four to five hours. They are the classes that teach Sicilian cooking as opposed to Italian cooking, and they are worth the extra hour.
The evening standards
Pizza and gelato, or pasta and tiramisù with flowing wine, run every evening in the centre, are cheaper and shorter, and are the most-booked classes in the city. Good for families and for a social night; less Sicilian.
Sicilian specialities
Small-group classes focused on ravioli and cannoli, or on arancine and cassatelle, teach the things you cannot learn elsewhere: the ricotta cream, the shell fried around a cane, the rice ball closed by hand. A class in a nineteenth-century villa outside the centre adds the setting.
Frequently asked questions
Which Palermo cooking class is the most Sicilian?
The market-to-table classes and the cannoli and arancine masterclasses; the pizza and pasta evenings are Italian standards.
Are classes in English?
The ones we list are, with hosts used to international guests.
Can children join?
Pizza, gelato and cannoli classes suit children well; market classes are long for the young ones.
Read next: Palermo street food glossary
How we choose
We list only experiences with a strong rating over a meaningful number of reviews and free cancellation where available, and we favour small-group and family-run hosts. FindEatLocal earns a commission when you book through GetYourGuide or Viator links on this page; it doesn’t change the price you pay. More about how we choose.