Make traditional handmade pasta from scratch with a local chef!

Amazing experience in the heart of Bologna! This cooking class was everything we wanted and more. Ilaria was a lovely host and it was great hearing about her life and her passion for cooking. In addition, she gave lots of recommendations for restaurants and other activities in Bologna so we'd recommend planning this cooking experience earlier in your trip. We kept it simple and opted to make the classics, a ragu with fresh pasta and tiramisu and they were honestly the tastiest dishes we'd ever made! We also appreciated Ilaria's teaching style which made everything easy to follow.

My husband and I had a great experience learning how to make tagliatelle, tortelloni and bolognese sauce. Ilaria is the best she explained the type of ingredients she uses, she demonstrated all of

her techniques and she took her time and made it very enjoyable. At the end we sat down and had a wonderful lunch with everything we made! This was a very enjoyable experience!💕🇮🇹💕

The cooking class with Ilaria made me understand cooking. I did not like cooking before. My girlfriend pushed me to the cooking class. With the help of Ilaria I understood that cooking is more than just eating fast. She educated me that cooking is more a philosophy. She told me a lot about ingredients and the simplicity of Italian cuisine. I really enjoyed it and, by this, planted a seed in brain to learn more about cooking.

Now, almost one year after, I did two other cooking classes in Germany and Israel. Moreover, I will do the pasta and ragu for the first meeting of my girlfriend‘s family with my family. I will cook for both families. I am excited but I will do it! Thanks to Ilaria!

P.S. I also highly recommend to do the market tour. Ilaria is a great guide with so much knowledge about food in general and also provides some tips for hidden gems in Bologna.

We had a wonderful cooking class with Ilaria in September. We had many emails going back and forth and she was always so quick to respond. We planned this class with some friends who were in Bologna for the first time and we wanted them to have this experience. I'm so glad we chose Ilaria. She is funny and has a great personality - but she also takes her traditional cooking very serious. We had to practice using the rolling pin without dough until we got it correct. It was a very special day

While traveling in Italy with friends we spent a delightful 2 days in Bologna with Ilaria, first cooking traditional Bolognese sauce with tagliatelle, meatballs (ground beef, pork and mortadella!) with peas, and learning the art of making pasta with the long rolling pin. The next day was spent touring the countryside with behind the scenes stops to learn about and taste Parmesan, prosciutto and balsamic. Ilaria made it a fun, informative and unique experience with her easy manner and obvious love and knowledge of the Bolognese culture. Definitely a 5 star experience!

In October 2012 I had the great pleasure to both stay at Casa Ilaria B&B as well as take the cooking class and tours of Bologna, Modena, and Parma with Ilaria. Two big thumbs up for everything! I arrived early on a train from Padova where I was staying. I checked in to my AMAZING room then rushed off to met Ilaria. We immediately headed out into Bologna for a walking tour which had a focus on the foods of the region. Bakeries, pastry shops, salumificio's, cheeses and then best for me was the fresh fruit and vegetable market. After picking up a few items we headed back to Casa Ilaria for my cooking class. On the menu was a fresh pasta (not as easy as you would think), a nice basic ragu' (those of us not from Bologna call it a Bolonese sauce, and an absolutely decadent flour-less chocolate cake. I learned that rolling a good pasta dough is VERY hard. You really need to pay attention and it does take practice. I am no where near as good as Ilaria, but I have been practicing and I am getting a bit better (Ilaria you would be proud of me I can now roll my pasta out WITHOUT any creases or tears, AND I can even manage to keep it in the right shape). Once we completed making the meal we sat down with a good bottle of wine and enjoyed the meal and each others company.

The next morning we were off bright and early for a personally guided tour of a Parmesan cheese producer. What a great time that was. We were the only people there (other than the employees). I can't tell you how nice it was to NOT be surrounded by hundreds of other tourists. We experienced the same exclusivity when we went to Salumificio La Perla and got schooled on the Parma Prosciutto making process. After that we stopped at a fairytale of a castle nestled on a lush green hillside. The views of the Parma countryside from the ramparts were positively breathtaking. Our next stop was one of the oldest aceto balsamico producers on the area, Acetala Malpighi. There we had again an exclusive tour followed by a tasting of all their produtcs. The experience was both educational and a gastronomic pleasure! Ilaria and I then zipped back to Bologna where sadly it was time for me to head back to the train station.

Ilaria is a great host! I felt like I had known her all my life. She was fun, knowledgable, and a true professional in the kitchen. I would HIGHLY recommend all three experiences, 1. Staying at Casa Ilaria, 2. Cooking classes with Ilaria at Bologna Bourmet and 3. A gourmet tour of the Emilia-Romagna region. Thank you Ilaria!!! Can't wait to see you again Ciao

We had a great cooking class and learned quite a lot about Bolognese cooking with Ilaria at the kitchen of her B&B. Making pasta from scratch and rolling it to paper thin was definitely a new experience for us. We felt like we were invited to cook at an Italian family home - cooking & eating what they would be everyday and we loved it! It was exactly what we were hoping for! However, what previous reviews said about using frozen chopped veg and tomato sauce out of a jar are all true. That, could be acceptable since most of us might take the same short cuts at home. What was not acceptable was how often Ilaria wiped the rim of the jar, licked her fingers then repeat. It was one thing if she only did this w/ the raw ingredients for the ragu (the tomato sauce jar). Unfortunately, she also went for multiple "tastings" of cooked, fire of the stove off sauce with the same spoon over and over again. That's how diseases like Hep B is spread! We only continued on w/ the class b/c we had Hep B shots and it was past the third hour of a five hour class. Then one of the pieces of pasta sheets fell on the floor - she picked it up and threw it into the pot.. claiming boiling water will sanitize it. In two minutes? Nope, most things take at least 10 minutes to kill. And no, we were not allowed to use the bathroom after they were cleaned which was around 12:30 as stated in previous reviews as well. The class was from 10 am - 3:30pm and that was a long time to be w/out a bathroom...

In conclusion, as much as the food was fabulous and Ilaria's instructions are wonderful, her unsanitary practice triggers my OCD enough for me to not want to go back again. 8-/