The Best Cooking Classes to Take in Barcelona

Located just a stone’s throw away from the famous la Boqueria food market, Barcelona Cooking offers a choice of cooking classes in English, with the option of adding a tour of the market with a chef to help you choose your produce. The Spanish Cookery class will teach you how to prepare four classic Spanish dishes, including paella, soup, an appetizer and a dessert, with seasonal ingredients. Then all that’s left to do is sit down and enjoy the meal which includes a selection of local wines.

Located in a quiet back street of El Born, Aula Canela Fina is a family-run business which offers a selection of cookery classes and events organized in their stylish locale. Not catering exclusively to the tourist market, the classes here move away from typical Spanish cooking to focus on particular ingredients, occasions or chefs. The calendar of courses is updated regularly to reflect what is in season – like a course dedicated entirely to peas, or another to salt cod. They also offer exclusive cooking classes by up-and-coming young chefs from across Catalonia who have worked in some of the most prestigious restaurants in the province.

If you’re serious about your sweet tooth then this is the class for you. Espai Sucre is both a top-end dessert school and Barcelona’s premier dessert restaurant. The courses are aimed at serious chefs, and although you don’t need to be a professional you’ll have to be comfortable with the basics of patisserie. The courses on offer change throughout the year and focus on different skills and areas of work – for example chocolate-work, baking or even desserts for people with allergies. After each class you receive a recipe book as well as a certificate to show you took part.

A play on words, Born to Cook references the venue’s location in a restored period building in the heart of El Born. Led by young chef Alex López, the class on offer here includes a tour of the Santa Caterina Market – less famous with tourists than the Boqueria but just as popular with locals – before heading back to the venue to prepare a five-course Catalan menu. You’ll be able to enjoy a glass of cava or wine while you get involved in every step of the cooking process before sitting down to enjoy your meal.

Catering to both the local and traveler market, BCN Kitchen offers a Spanish cookery class in English as well as a variety of specialist courses in Spanish. If your language skills aren’t too bad, then make the most of them and sign up to everything from a gourmet hamburger course to a Thai cooking class right here in Barcelona. There are classes organized regularly throughout the week and the groups are usually quite lively.