Dear Culinary Backstreets,
My wife and I love to cook at home and for our friends, and we would love to learn more about Spanish cuisine on our next trip to Barcelona so that we can recreate our favorite meals when we return home. Where can we take English-language cooking classes in the city?

There are tons of cooking classes in Barcelona for all kinds of cooking levels. At the top there are the hospitality and culinary schools such as ESHOB, CETT (Universitat de Barcelona), the pioneer Escuela Bellart and the famous Hofmann school, all of which offer degree and professional training programs lasting several months or years for hotel managers, chefs, bakers and sommeliers. But there are also plenty of classes and workshops for amateur cooks, foodies and the just plain curious that are taught in Spanish and Catalan and cover a wide range of cooking styles and interests, such as international, Spanish, traditional, innovative, healthy or vegetarian, pastries and baking, and wine tasting, among many others.

The options in English, however, are narrower, focusing on the most typical Spanish-Catalan dishes – perfect for a short course on getting just the right crust on a paella, turning over a Spanish tortilla (potato omelet) with cool confidence and creating some of the most celebrated Spanish tapas or Catalan desserts. Many times, these workshops also include a tasting of Catalan wines, and some offer a visit to a local market or can organize specific activities such as corporate events or team-building cooking sessions.

There are two kinds of cooking school at the amateur level: those for locals, with some workshops in English, and those geared toward an international clientele and tourists. The former will have a wider range of offerings and may also be of interest to you if you understand Spanish and/or wish to improve it. The atmosphere is completely Barcelonan. The latter will offer an introduction – in English – to Catalonia’s most famous foods and recipes.

Here are a few recommended options. Many of these change their offerings at different times of the year, so be sure contact them to find out more about what will be available when you’re in town.

Barcelona Cook&Taste
This pioneering cooking school, located in a medieval building with renovated spaces and modern facilities, directs its programming fully to international clients and companies, offering private lessons, team-building activities and corporate events. In addition to cooking classes, which cover not just popular Spanish dishes but also haute cuisine, the school can also take students on guided visits to La Boquería to shop for ingredients

Catacurian
Focused on an international clientele, Catacurian offers half- or one-day classes with wine tasting in Barcelona and also longer culinary vacations, from two to six days at a boutique hotel in the wine region of Priorat (Tarragona). Classes may include market visits and wine tastings.

Espai Boisà
Devoted to healthy, natural Mediterranean cooking, Espai Boisà draws clients who are primarily chefs, nutritionists and health professionals and who mainly speak Spanish and Catalan. As far as English offerings, there are seasonal workshops for small groups – just four people – so that everyone can get their hands dirty. The ingredients and wines are organic and local. The school also organizes private and corporate events, demos and private cooking sessions with famous chefs. The venue’s cute little garden is the perfect setting in which to share a wine glass and some tapas.

bcnKITCHEN
This center offers a wide variety of cooking classes in Spanish and two workshops in English for international visitors, “Spanish Cooking” and “Tapas Cooking,” which include a visit to the Santa Caterina market. The workshops are just the thing to teach you how to make a good paella and to reproduce easy tapas dishes at home. The school can also organize private and corporate events and provides a space that is modern, joyful and luminous.

Canela Fina
This relatively young school offers classes mainly in Spanish or Catalan and also can host corporate and private events in a charming, rustically appointed loft with modern facilities. It also has an interesting workshop in English on creative tapas that ventures beyond the typical dishes on every menu in town. Here you can learn – hands-on or with the help of the chef – how to prepare tapas and tricks to make your food a little bit different. Canela Fina also offers personalized classes; just contact the school with your request.

Published on May 16, 2014

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