Venice Market Tour & Cooking Class: Learn Risotto & Tiramisu

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.94 (32 reviews) 94% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellation

1/11

Duration4h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN · IT +1

Mobile ticketAccepted

Small groups skip bus line; shop market with local, then cook in her kitchen

You meet Laura at the Santa Margherita market, walk through her neighborhood, and spend ninety minutes in her kitchen learning to make risotto and tiramisu. You cook it yourself, she guides you through the technique and the story, then you sit down and eat together with wine and coffee. It's private, small-group, and includes everything — market, ingredients, instruction, meal, and local wine.

Step-by-step itinerary

Market tour and cooking class

Meet Laura at Santa Margherita market
Explore local vendors and pick ingredients
Walk 20 minutes to Laura’s home
Enjoy light appetizer and aperitif
Participate in 1.5-hour cooking class
Prepare risotto or pasta and tiramisù
Eat meal with wine and conversation

The Experience

What if the person teaching you to make risotto actually grew up eating her mother's version, in the same neighborhood where you're standing right now? That's Laura. She was born in Venice, still lives there in an apartment twenty minutes from the center, and she's built this experience around the idea that cooking isn't something you watch — it's something you do, in her kitchen, with her talking you through it. The whole thing runs about three hours: you start at the Santa Margherita market, where she shows you which vendors she actually uses, then walk back to her place and spend ninety minutes learning to make a seasonal risotto (or fresh pasta if you ask when you book) and tiramisu from scratch.

The market part matters more than it sounds. Laura doesn't just point at things; she's picking ingredients with you for the meal you're about to cook, so you're not wandering around looking at produce — you're shopping for dinner. After that twenty-minute walk through real Venetian streets, you arrive at her apartment in a neighborhood with almost no tourists. Her kitchen is small and well-equipped, and she walks you through each step: how to build the risotto, how to get the mascarpone cream right for tiramisu, why the timing matters. She tells you stories about where these dishes come from, what her mother taught her, what changes with the season. Then you sit down and eat what you made, with wine, coffee, limoncello, and conversation that usually runs longer than anyone planned.

A few practical things: the apartment doesn't have air conditioning, but Laura uses fans and keeps it comfortable. She can take up to four people comfortably, five if everyone's okay with it being cozy. She handles vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free — just mention it when you book. On rare occasions her friend Ilaria, also Venetian, might be there to help. The whole experience is private, so it's just you and Laura, no group of strangers learning to cook at the same time.

What’s included

Your experience includes a private one-hour market tour with Laura at Santa Margherita, where you pick ingredients together for the meal.
You'll then walk to her apartment and spend ninety minutes in a hands-on cooking class learning to prepare a seasonal risotto (or pasta or polenta if you prefer) and tiramisu.
The meal you cook is served with a light appetizer, focaccia with regional olives and cheeses, wine, coffee, and limoncello.
Laura accommodates dietary requests — vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free — when you book.

Good to know

Stroller friendlyPublic transport nearby

Operated by Traveling Spoon

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to learn actual cooking technique from someone who grew up cooking it, in a real Venetian home, without the performance of a tourist cooking school. The small group size and private setting are what make it feel like you're learning from a friend, not attending a class.