Most delicious cooking & warming conversation - I had the most wonderful time learning to cook the absolute most delicious and beautiful sardine dish along with pasta al norma, fennel orange salad, and ricotta tiramisi with Carmen! She was a great teacher, a nice mix of hands on and hands off, explains details and back stories, and also lovely conversations about life. She is so welcoming and kind it felt like being with a new friend. I highly recommend this to anyone visiting Siracusa or Ortigia! Thank you so much!!!!

Sicilian specialties from a super chef! - We had a fabulous time learning from Carmen - she was very welcoming and a great host as well as being a patient teacher - she worked with us on both our interests and our dietary restrictions, as well as providing some recommendations for other towns we are visiting - 100% recommend and will be taking home great memories and the recipes to repeat ! Grazie mille Carmen! S&S

The best cooking class you'll do - Carmen's class was fantastic! The recipes are delicious, Carmen is an excellent teacher and wonderful company for the day. We made arancini, eggplant with pasta and cannolis and I've tried cooking the eggplant dish back home myself - it holds up! I would recommend this to anyone who's going to Syracuse or Ortigia. Thank you so much Carmen for a great day!

Best regional cooking experience. You will feel at home. - Carmen was so flexible in honoring our last minute reservation for this class. It was a family trip and my daughter loves to cook. Her wish list item on the trip was to take a Sicilian cooking class and learn some authentic home made dishes. Carmen fulfilled that wish and then some. We made a lovely cake, learned about local cheese, made an amazing pasta and fish dish. All of this while sipping wine and laughing with Carmen. She gave us so many tips and tricks and are truly grateful for her for sharing her knowledge and talent while making us feel at home. We are excited to recreate these recipes and will cherish this memory forever. We highly recommend doing this experience if you enjoy food and want to learn how to cook food from the region.

Highlight of our trip - Carmen let us choose the menu ahead of time and gave great suggestions. She also called ahead to get our beverage requests. So thoughtful! She picked us up at our Airbnb in Ortigia and brought us to her lovely home with beautiful views. She was very well prepared and we got right to work. We made aranccini with ragu, caponata and cannoli. She also gave us a little snack of olives, cheese and bread during a short break. The food was amazing and we are excited to try the recipes at home. Carmen is full of information, having grown up in Ortigia and lived all over the world. She is truly passionate about preserving the traditional recipes of Sicily. The biggest surprise is that she makes her own olive oil and it was incredible. We’ve been all over Italy over the past several days and this will be the highlight of our trip I’m sure.

More than just a cooking class … hospitality at its finest. - Carmen was the most gracious and hospitable host. The food was fantastic. The instructions were easy to follow and explained very well. Our adventure began with a warm welcome at the cruise ship pier and a short ride to Carmen’s lovely home. In route she shared info about the area and pointed out a few points of interest along the way. Upon our arrival, everything was prepped and ready for our class, which included two workstations and aprons. Her kitchen was exquisitely designed and well appointed with all the modern conveniences. We were extremely appreciative that we were able to select the items we wanted to make from a list of more than 20 entrees and 7 or more desserts. We choose an eggplant dish, a swordfish dish, fennel salad and tiramisu. We had plenty of hands on instructions, with a serenade of Italian music playing in the background, accompanied by a printouts of all the recipes. While we waited for our dishes to finish cooking in the oven, Carmen served a lovely cheese tray with bread and wine and invited us to sit on her expansive balcony that overlooked the city and the harbor and was adorned with beautiful plants. When the food was ready, we ate in the dining room with linens table clothes and napkins, china and stemware. I have been to Syracuse several times , as well as several other nearby Italian and Greek ports. This was definitely one of my most memorable experiences. Carmen makes you feel like a good friend. Her home is a beautiful reflection of the kind, eclectic and welcoming person she is. I would not hesitate to take another class and visit with Carmen on my next trip to Sicily. Several hours later, she returned us to the port, bellies full, smiling from ear to ear, more knowledgeable than when arrived, enthusiastic about replicating our dishes for our families when we returned home, and she gave us suggestions of things we might like to do in the old town for the time we had remaining in port. Thank you, Carmen, for an unforgettable afternoon.

Five Stars - Experience a cooking class with Carmen! - Highly Recommend experiencing a cooking class with Carmen! Once we booked the class, we connected on Whats App and Carman began inquiring what dishes we might like to make. She had great ideas and was incredibly accommodating. Her apartment and kitchen was beautiful and a wonderful space for the course. From her lovely patio you could see the sea, Ortigia and Mount Etna. She has the sweetest little pup too. She had printouts of the dishes we were making ready for us to make notes on. She let us be as hands on as we wanted, explaining as we went along. She was also full of tips and tricks or suggestions for how we could experiment/practice more when we were home (which we definitely will be doing!) We chose to make the fresh spring soup with artichoke, fresh peas, fava beans, leeks, potato and spring onion, lemon and fennel salad, Arancini with butternut squash, bacon and cheese, fried calamari. The food was amazing and we were very happy with our choices but have no doubt whatever we had chosen would have been fantastic. The time flew by, we enjoyed learning and having a delicious meal and made a new friend. We had such a wonderful time and will remember this day for many many years to come. Without a doubt, we would book another class with Carmen. We simply could not recommend enough.

Carmen Cooking Class - Carmen was a great host. She picked us up near our airbnb and carefully reviewed all of our options for the 3 delicious courses we prepared together. She provides copies of the recipes as well, which is a really nice touch. Her homemade limoncello was fantastic! I would definitely recommend Carmen's class for a unique Sicilian experience! Mary

Wonderful Sicilian cooking class - I highly recommend this cooking class; Carmen is a wonderful host and teacher! She let me choose the recipes I wanted to learn, and the results were delicious. I came away with a lot of insight into Sicily and its cuisine, and had a wonderful time.

The best experience ever !! ☺️ - What an amazing and unique experience this was!! Carmen was sooo sweet and went above and beyond to make our experience a great one! Every thing we made was so delicious and she provided us recipes on everything we made. This was the best cooking class I’ve ever taken truly!! I’ve taken a few and this was by far the most authentic experience ever! You feel at home and actually get taught how to do things instead of being forgotten about in a bigger more commercial cooking class. She answered all our questions and was so kind to us. All the ingredients were fresh and delicious! Her home is beautiful and overlooks the ocean and the volcano. She made us feel right at home ☺️ I would absolutely book with her again! She made our whole trip! Thank you so much Carmen!