UPDATED November 25, 2024:We have limited availability on our cooking tours. We have very high demand now that travel has become safe once again and travel restrictions have been lifted.

Please contact us by email or call 347-566-2212 to book. If you are ready to travel with us, we suggest you reserve now; we unfortunately refuse about 25% of clients because the tour they want to participate in has filled by the time they call to book.

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• Liguria Tour
• Southern Italy Tour
• Choosing the Best Tour for You

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Culinary Tours Early Access

Hands-on Cooking Classes

Italian food is extremely varied and deeply regional. From making fresh pasta by hand to kneading focaccia dough, roasting and braising meats, poaching fish, whipping up amazing desserts, and more, each hands-on cooking class will focus on key Italian culinary techniques and culminate in a full Italian meal.

Our hands-on cooking lessons will be led by tour hosts Micol and Dino, and will touch on every aspect of Italian cuisine: antipasti, fresh pasta (gnocchi, tagliatelle, and more), risotto, fish and meat, vegetables, handmade bread and focaccia, and classic desserts. By tour's end, you'll have perfected many essential culinary skills and learned dozens of Italian dishes. We'll even bring our sourdough starter along and teach you to bake crusty bread and focaccia!

Restaurant Dinners:

Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata are famous for their extensive repertoire of semolina pastas, breads, and focaccias; an abundant use of cultivated and wild vegetables, a delectable array of fresh farmhouse cow's milk cheeses, robust meat preparations, simple fish dishes, and Greek-influenced desserts. We have selected restaurants in nearby medieval towns where you can enjoy a taste of the local cuisine. Some restaurants will be elegant, some may even have a Michelin star, others will be family-run and cozy, but all will provide us with a memorable gastronomic experience. The only prerequisite is to bring your appetite (and perhaps pants with an elastic waistband, according to a past tour participant!), because the meals will be generous and wine is always included!

The Food of Puglia, Calabria, and Basilicata

Three things are essential to the Pugliese kitchen: wheat, vegetables, and olive oil. Semolina flour is transformed into a variety of handmade pastas and wheels of rustic bread. Almost every dish (from sublime tomato-topped bruschetta to lamb baked with bitter onions and potatoes) is doused with olive oil: after all, Puglia is Italy's largest producer of olive oil. Fava beans and wild chikpeas are transformed into thick soups, refreshing salads, and comforting side dishes. The Apulians, shepherds since ancient times, tend to prefer lamb, mutton, kid, and goat, which they cook simply with fragrant herbs, olive oil, and perhaps a handful of tomatoes or potatoes. And when it comes to sweets, the Pugliese appetite for honey, nuts, and dried fruit gives rise to a number of pastries, cakes, and fritters with roots in ancient Greece and echoes of the Orient.

Calabrese cuisine too has been shaped by many foreign influences, with Greek, Arab, and Albanian flourishes evident in many of the local specialties. Characteristic dishes are laced with chili pepper (the local varieties have astounding sweetness and personality), sweet-and-sour notes mingle in savory preparations, and desserts are often deep-fried and drenched in honey. Fresh pasta is rolled out into thin sheets called sagne (similar but more robust than northern Italy's lasagne), and strips of semolina dough are wound around a knitting needle to shape chewy, memorable fusilli al ferretto (knitting-needle fusilli). There is pork anduja, a fiery fresh salami that is added to pasta sauces or slathered on bread, and the aged sheep's milk cheeses and caciocavallo are among the best you'll find in Italy.

Similarly, the cuisine of Basilicata remains a rural one, deeply anchored in peasant traditions. The bread of Matera is almost as famous (and just as fabulous) as the one baked in nearby Altamura in Puglia. The fresh pastas are rustic and hearty: cavatelli, orecchiette, strascinati, and dozens of other shapes are handmade only with semolina flour and water, dressed with olive oil and chili, with bitter greens, or with robust meat sauces. The most characteristic meat dish is pignata, which tenderizes tough cuts by slow-cooking with aromatic vegetables in a sealed earthenware pot. Desserts are simple, and fresh ricotta tarts, nut cookies, and fruit gelato typically provide a sweet finale.

Pricing & Booking Details

Cost

Date	Duration	Cost pp based on Double Occupancy
		Euro	approximate USD
October 8-16, 2025	9 days/8 nights	5,800 Euro	$6,200

As many of you already know, we moved to Liguria, Italy in April 2023, after nearly 30 years of living in the US and operating our business from NYC. As full time residents of Italy, we have to operate the tour business as an Italian company. Therefore, our tour pricing has been updated to be in Euro.

• Price above is per person based on double occupancy in a standard room in both agriturismi (note: this is a 9-day/8-night tour)
• A very limited number of single occupancy supplements is available for an additional fee; please inquire upon booking. NOTE: Since many of the rooms have two separate beds, friends traveling together can comfortably share a room and book as double occupancy.

On this tour, we have a total of 12 rooms, each with a private bathroom, available for our group. Since we are staying in 2 different properties (one in Puglia and one in Calabria), and all rooms are individually decorated and designed, we have several options for upgraded accommodations. The below descriptions and pricing are for rooms in both locations.

• Large Room (Puglia and Calabria): Significantly more spacious than a standard rooms in Puglia and Calabria. Additional 600 Euro total per room for all 8 nights.
• Suite (Puglia and Calabria): Large bedroom with adjoining living area in Puglia and Calabria. Additional 800 Euro total per room for all 8 nights.
• Single Trullo (Puglia) and Suite (Calabria) with outdoor space : Large room housed in a charming single trullo (a unique stone dwelling with a conical tiled roof) in Puglia, and spacious, elegant Suite in Calabria, both with outdoor space. Additional 1,000 Euro total per room for all 8 nights.
Double Trullo (Puglia) and Suite (Calabria) with outdoor space : Two bedrooms plus a living room housed in a charming double trullo (a unique stone dwelling with a conical tiled roof) in Puglia, and spacious, elegant Suite in Calabria, both with outdoor space. Additional 1,250 Euro total per room for all 8 nights.

Please note that all upgraded accommodations are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Please inquire about upgrading your accommodations upon booking. We require payment for any upgraded accommodations upon booking, along with your deposit.

What's Included

All activities, meals with wine, and cooking classes are included as part of the tour cost once you arrive at the estate. Our philosophy is that once you arrive at the estate by your own means, everything is included... every meal with wine, transportation to and from the various sites, tastings, and all activities we will be enjoying as a group:

• 4 nights stay Puglia + 4 nights stay Calabria
• transportation between Puglia and Calabria segments of the tour
• all breakfasts, all lunches, all dinners
• room with its own en-suite bathroom
• daily cooking classes
• wine with all lunches and dinners
• wine tasting
• olive oil tasting and visit of olive mill
• cheesemaking class
• gelato class
• all organized group activities
• transportation to and from all group activities
• recipes
• Rustico Cooking apron
• One-year membership to the Rustico Cooking Video Membership site

What's Excluded

Cost does not include airfare and ground transportation for your arrival at the Puglia estate on the first day of the tour, and transportation from the Calabria estate to your next destination at the end of the tour. We are happy to book you a car service that can arrange for pick up and drop off as requested. We strongly encourage trip insurance.

Deposit & Final Payment

A deposit of 1,800 Euro per person is required to reserve. Final payment is due three months prior to the start of the tour at the latest. Deposits and final payments are non-refundable.

Price is subject to change as a result of international currency fluctuations that may affect the cost of air/land/sea transportation, hotels, or other related services.

Refunds & Cancellation Policy:

In the event that we cancel a trip, you will be given a full refund of all deposits and payments unless the reason for cancellation is due to circumstances outside our control (such as a pandemic, act of God, war, etc.). In the case of cancellations due to circumstances outside our control, you will not be refunded but you will be able to apply your payment to another tour within the following 2 years. We do not give refunds on deposits or final payments for tours that commence as scheduled, including for unused portions of the tour. We do give credit for cancellations as noted below.

Cancellation Credit:

In the event you cancel your tour for any reason, we allow credit for final payments (but not deposits) in the following way:

• 100% credit for future tours given with 90 days notice.
• 60% credit for future tours given with notice of 60 to 89 days.
• 30% credit for future tours given with notice of 30 to 59 days.
• No credit given for cancellation less than 30 days prior to start date of the tour.
• No credit for the reservation deposit.
• All cancellation credits are good for two years from the start date of the originally scheduled tour.

Payment Options:

There are two ways to pay for our tours: You can pay by credit card (please contact us by email for details, and note that there is a 3.5% surcharge if you choose this option to cover for credit card fees); or you can pay by wire transfer (if you choose this option please contact us by email and we will provide you the wire transfer details).