Sur La Table Cooking Class

I went to the Healthy Cooking Class yesterday (Sunday) and had a wonderful experience! Chef Gil was an amazing instructor. Would love to take another class with him! However I gave only 4 stars because there was the Chef’s assistant, his name is Winston, who didn’t seem to want to be there. And to be honest a little rude. He didn’t have a care about the class. WHEN I do come back for a class I will most likely ask if Winston will be working the class as well because if he is I will not take it.

I loved this experience! I went for the «Date Night: Romance in Italy» class where we made Pasta Carbonara, Beef tenderloins, fennel salad, and an espresso dessert. All of the recipes with a step by step guide was given to us and we got to talk to the chef to ask her where to buy certain ingredients, how to make a good salad dressing, what the best techniques were for cooking meat, etc.
The cooking class itself was a 4 star experience! Not 5 stars because: you had to share one gas stovetop with another couple (which meant that you had to work out who wants to do what with the group you are sharing your stove with) and the portions are actually not that big.
BUT! The chef I had gave us a knife cutting demo as well as showed us how to cut and even cook certain foods while we all ate our entrees. That was really cool because it felt like we were getting more than what we paid for.
I’m sure that each experience is subjective and dependent on who your chef is and who you are sharing your table with, but I personally had a good time and would do this again for another special occasion (:
We paid $ 85/​person. Parked in the parking garage and ended up paying $ 6 (I think we stayed for a total of 3 hours at the Grove). We also used their 10% off coupon to buy a couple gifts for friends.

The 48 hrs cancellation policy is draconian and they will not try to help you in case you get there late (they said they give you two minutes span) or miss the class (even if you call them explaining the situation). Your loss, their gain ($$$).
Sadly, I will never look for their classes again. If I am going to deal with someone acting like a robot, I better look somewhere else cheaper and with more sensitive customer’s service.

5 stars for Chef Colette Christian! She is such a sweet lady, my mom, sister, and I took her Cooking Class and we made Macarons! I’m so excited for her new book to get published so that I can read up on it! She is such an amazing instructor. She answered all questions that would have popped in my head had I tried to make Macarons on my own. It’s amazing how amazing our Macarons turned out with her instructions. Included in her macaron cooking class, she explains chemistry and physics with baking and I couldn’t have been happier with our results!

I’ve done 1 cooking class here (Italian Date Night) and have a second one scheduled (Thai). It was a fun class. I had taken one other cooking class before at a designated cooking class facility (not at Sur La Table) which I preferred because it was a little slower pace and more educational. Although the cooking class here was fun, it went a little quick and the chef didn’t fully explain WHY we were doing some of the things we were doing. I left feeling I didn’t get some of the fundamentals I was expecting to take away from the class. They give you a break in the middle of the class to browse the store and they definitely encourage you to shop and buy some items. Overall I didn’t feel it was too sales-​y/​pushy. The food was pretty good, though I wish there was more of a relaxed way to eat it (we mostly just ate it standing around… there wasn’t like a sit-​down table to have it at the way there was at the other cooking class place I had tried). The only other thing that would make it a better experience is if they had BYOB! But I assume they can’t do this since it’s within the store. Despite some of the drawbacks, it was still a fun night out and I’m looking forward to our next class there.

To be fair, I’ll divide this review into good AND bad.
GOOD
Food was delicious
Setting was professional and clean
Started on time
Relaxed Atmosphere
Offered 10% discount on Sur La Table that evening ONLY
BAD
Small portions and had to split everything with partner
Seemed rushed (Ended an hour earlier than advertised)
Was supposed to make dessert but that was pre-​done and simply served out
Chef was good but not great
Seemed Over-​priced for what you got
Didn’t really ‘cook’ in the class. Most was chopping and mixing

Sur La Table is awesome, but at first glance, walking into a cooking class and having to share a cutting board with a friend, I was a little bit turned off.
However there is so much that needs to be done for these classes that it actually is super hands on. The food is perfect, the Chef is fantastic and very knowledgeable about all food topics and he gets your cooking abilities pretty quickly.
I highly recommend this class– go with a friend though so you don’t have to share a cutting board with a rando.

Been for two cooking classes now taught by Colette Christian, Macarons and French Desserts, and both were outstanding! Colette and her staff get 5 stars for effort, accessibility and for making a daunting topic like macarons and French pastry accessible. The little details and tips offered throughout the class are so helpful and take your dessert from being a B+ to a straight A! Thank you so much for taking the fear out of macarons, soufflé and flaky pastry! The store discount that you get as a student doesn’t hurt either. Used it to get some Silpat mats which have been heavily utilized since! I would highly recommend it! Note those with only a rudimentary experience in the kitchen might struggle a little at first but Chef Colette is great at making you feel at ease.

This was my first time taking a cooking class. Our instructor had a strong accent, so it was a little difficult to understand the instructions. The su chefs were really helpful. I would defiantly give this place another chance, but I will do my part in researching for chef reviews… Something that I use to do when I’m looking at ratings for professors. Knowledge: 5 stars. Overall class: 4 stars. Organization: 3 stats. Accent: 2 ½ stars.

This review is for the COOKING CLASS only:
Get there early. Get there early. Or suffer the consequences!
We signed up for a single session group cooking class.
The recipes were great, no complaints there.
This place is so disorganized. I felt stressed out. First of all, it should be stated how necessary it is to GET THERE EARLY. The grove is a NIGHTMARE to visit on a weekend, and even though I thought we had ample time to get there, parking and walking through the masses of people takes an extra 20 minutes. So we were about 10 minutes late. I didn’t think we would miss too much in those few minutes — but when we got there, everyone was already set-​up and in teams, and the instructor and the assistants didn’t even acknowledge our presence, and we were totally clueless how to proceed. I mean we literally were 8 minutes late, so I don’t know how everyone was all set-​up that quickly unless they got there early. I thought it was totally inappropriate that nobody helped us or acknowledged us when we arrived, since the classes cost $ 70 each, and it was obvious that we were pre-​registered.
Since nobody acknowledged us, we had to interrupt the class to receive some instruction on how to get set-​up and where to stand — it was embarrassing, the response from the chef was dismissive and unfriendly, like we didn’t belong there. Excuse me? We pre-​registered, each one of us, for a $ 70 class! A little «hi guys» would have been nice. Not a good way to start…
The class itself was not fully set-​up — frequently, teams of people would not be able to proceed because the prep was not fully done before the class began. Where is the salt that we are being asked to use? Where are the utensils we are supposed to have? Why are there not enough sets of ingredients? Etc. Even the chef seemed confused about where the supplies were, at times. And yet, he kept emphasizing how rushed for time we were.
The chef also gave extremely vague instructions. That’s cool — we had an instruction sheet — but again, the ingredients and supplies were not properly laid-​out before the class started, so it was hard to fill-​in the blanks. There were all these awkward pauses, or moments of confusion about where to get ingredients. The support staff was scrambling and it just felt extremely disorganized.
Sur La Table, get it together please.

I took the Evening in Paris cooking class with my boyfriend and we were very disappointed. When we arrived, we saw 7 other couples, but only 4 cutting boards total. You have to share the cooking responsibilities with another couple and each person only gets ¼ of a meal. For how much we spent, almost $ 200, we should have had at least half a meal each. It was also hard to share the responsibilities because there weren’t that many things to do — the ingredients were already measured out for us.
They were running behind and we were rushed because there was another class after us, and when we got back from a quick 5-​minute break, we found that they had made the soufflé without us and put it in the oven.
Each person gets a handout with ingredients and directions. There were many times the teacher would direct us to do something, but the directions on the handout contradicted with what our teacher was telling us.
The only time I would go back is if there is a last minute class (which is usually discounted by A LOT) available. I would NEVER pay full price for this — it was a rip off.
Our menu:
Frisée Salad with Warm Goat Cheese and Champagne-​Shallot Vinaigrette
Herb Marinated Steak with Roquefort Butter
Pomme Frites Dusted with Truffle Salt
Chocolate-​Grand Marnier Soufflé

I had paid for the Mastering Macarons cooking class with Chef Colette Christian.
$ 69 for only being able to make the HALF recipe once and pipe the macaron shells once. The corporate recipes that they gave us on the handouts were not in agreement with Chef’s instructions so we had to cross out a lot and pencil in a lot and it was a headache. The class itself was hard to understand — granted I had no prior experience with making macarons but I DO bake. However, the class did not require that I had any prior experience. For a class this expensive I would imagine we could work in teams of two but we worked in teams of four due to limited kitchen space and limited mixers provided. We were supposed to have time to make a half recipe of filling for the macarons but we didn’t even have time for that. I expected that in a 3-​hour class, we would have enough time to be hands-​on with the recipe and listen to the lecture simultaneously. We all went home with a bag of 6 macarons which was the highlight of the class but I saw the leftover macarons being eaten by the assistant chefs which upset me a little bit since we had paid so much for the class and it was so rushed.
Tldr: don’t come into the macaron class with high expectations or you will most likely be disappointed. It is most time and cost efficient to just browse youtube for macaron tutorials. I regret not having done that myself!

Came here for a Date Night Summer in Spain cooking class with my husband because I thought it’s a cute concept. And it is! But in terms of learning anything, you would have to have never been in a kitchen in your life. My husband and I were hoping to learn some unique tricks and techniques.
You get grouped off with another couple or two to an area where everything is already measured and prepped for you. All you do is follow the instructions of the chef and you eat everything you make. Very simple, easy and straightforward
We made:
Fideos with Shrimp & Spanish Olives
Chicken with Piquillo Peppers
Grilled Asparagus with Romesco Sauce
Caramel Custard Flan
In the end, I liked how they provided us with with a little booklet on everything we made including the recipes, cookware, tools, gadgets, ingredients, tips and tricks. They also give you a 10% coupon to use toward purchases in the store. This is a cute date idea, but my husband and I would try another place to learn something.

Cooking class at this place is a rip off, highly overpriced and you really don’t actually cook, very disappointed. At the cost every participant should have their own station with their own ingredients but you end up sharing 1 bell pepper between 4 people. :/

My husband bought us a «Date Night Cooking Class» for Christmas from Sur La Table. What a sweet man! He knew how I wanted to learn more about cooking and get some experience and thought this was a good way. We both learned how wrong he was and how much he was duped.
Any experience I might have gotten was divided up between 4 people. That’s right! Rather than get to practice preparing a meal, I instead threw premeasured items into a bowl and got to do a quarter of the steps. A simple fix would be if they let every couple prepare their dish, but there was only 3 burners for 5 couples. It was incredibly awkward because other couples were clearly on their first dates trying to get to know one another and had to offer to let us whisk the dessert since we had no dessert of our own to work on.
I had no idea how much he paid for this experience until I went online today. I thought that if it was $ 30 per person, I couldn’t really complain because we had a Filet meal that we prepared. Holy buckets! EIGHTY DOLLARS PER PERSON! What a joke! This was an incredible waste of money and not a way to gain experience – except for how to interrupt another person’s date to ask them to pass the pepper.

Yesterday I did the risotto cooking class and loved it. GO HUNGRY~
I was very fortunate that there were only 4 students instead of the normal 16. We made 3 very yummy selections. There were some knife skill lessons and several awesome tips.
I only wish that other LA area Sur La Table locations had these classes~

Great cooking classes! Regardless of the topic or the instructor, the classes are always fun and filled with useful cooking tips. You also get a 10% discount on anything you want to buy in the store that day and for the next week. Sure, it’s a gimmick to get you to buy the (frequently unnecessary) things they display and use in the class, but it’s hard to walk through the store and not find something you could use.

Surprise cooking class gift!
What an incredible experience. I wasn’t expecting much and definitely thought it was going to be a basic cooking class where we made chocolate chip cookies and mashed potatoes or something super simple. Not at all. The theme was Mediterranean winter classics and we made the following:
–Moroccan-​Spice Seared Scallops with Roasted Garlic and Lemon Aioli
— Pork Loin Stuffed with Spinach, Olives and Pine Nuts
— Braised Winter Leeks with Warm Pancetta Dressing
— Rustic Apple Crostata with Walnuts and Orange
We were placed in groups of three to four people and worked together on each dish. The Sur La Table staff members were so unbelievably nice and fun and helpful; it really added an extra charm to the overall experience. The prep work and clean up were all graciously done by the staff as well! I felt like we were all chefs on our own food network show or something. The food came out surprisingly well and it was nice to be able to eat what we made with new friends afterwards.
Overall a really enjoyable night. I would highly recommend this as a gift for someone who loves to cook or as a unique great date night idea.

For my Christmas present, my boyfriend enrolled us in a dessert class at the Sur La Table in Silverlake. I, the sweet toother, was super stoked!
First off, I have to say: great location! This place is located right in between the Grove and the Farmer’s Market. Lots of shopper traffic especially during the weekend.
I loved the class! Chef Colette Christian was a great teacher; you can definitely sense her passion. She taught us tips & methods you would only learn in culinary school, and she was always open to questions.
The great thing about taking a class at Sur La Table is that YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO WASH DISHES. True story! I got to make a mess AND I didn’t have to clean up! That was awesome! There are a few «Kitchen Assistants» there to prep the food for you as well, so your eggs are cracked, and all measurements are measured out for you.
–
We learned the recipe to 4 different desserts:
1. Pear & Almond Tart — In terms of taste, this was probably my favorite. Our crust was warm and flaky, and the taste of the almonds and pear paired up really well together. This was SUPER yummy.
2 Crème Brûlée — My favorite dessert. I’m really glad I learned the recipe.
3. Chocolate Lava Cake — Note that you don’t get to go near the oven. Once you’re done with your creation, the Kitchen Assistant will put it in (and take it out) of the oven for you. Our chocolate cake was a little overdone. :(
4. Lemon Soufflé — meh, this was my least favorite.
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My overall experience here was great! I had a lot of fun learning the recipes. The only thing I did not like about the class was the amount of people that were there. We had about 20 people and there should have only been a maximum of 10. They stuff too many people in one class and force you into groups… you don’t fully get to experience everything — this is why I’m docking one point off.
Making your food is always different and better than going out. This is a fun and creative way to take your food passion to the next level. DO IT!

You could be a culinary moron and still be able to make a delicious meal. Even if you don’t know how to boil water, the cooking classes at Sur La Table will show you from start to finish how to prepare easy and memorable dishes.
The classes are hands-​on. You’re going to prep the food by cutting up veggies and mixing ingredients. Then you cook and eat the dishes that you prepare.
The cooking classes are well organized, friendly, and fun. The kitchen is clean, well-​stocked, and roomy. You’ll be learning all kinds of new tricks. You can even ask the chef about how to make other items that aren’t on your agenda. They’ll send you home with recipes for everything that you made that class so you don’t have to worry about forgetting your new skills.
Class range from about $ 60 to $ 95, and they are the best value of any other cooking classes that I’ve researched. Look for the date night classes that have special food and the special offers that come along with some classes such as free bakeware or cookbooks. They’ll also give you a 10% off voucher good for a week off anything in the store.
The kicker… you don’t have to do the dishes afterwards.