Sur La Table — Attraction in Ann Arbor

*Update: The store reached out and apologized for our experience, as well as providing a refund. They were very open about the situation, informing us that this was not how the classes are supposed to go, and that the instructor who taught our class is no longer there.

From their website: The cooking classes "offer a truly immersive culinary experience...Our hands-on classes encourage full participation". Our class was titled "Date Night: Chef's Table" and our experience was anything but the description from the website. There was an uncomfortable environment between the two chefs, and there were absolutely no "workstations" to speak of - we all just stood around 2 tables in front of the stove for almost half the class.

Participation consisted of a handful of things (fold some egg whites into the chocolate mix for the souffle, mix the vinaigrette into the salad, etc.), and not everyone was even able to participate. It was a couple of volunteers at a time. Only about half the class got to do any hands on work, everyone else just stood and watched for the 2 and a half hour, $99/person class.

The main chef made all the risotto himself, so we all just sat around and watched while he did that, all the while mentioning that the recipe we would receive is wrong because he had cooked risotto for a year straight (the risotto really was only okay). Additionally, he didn't add the pork into the risotto dish because he didn't believe the group when asked "Is anyone here vegetarian". Nobody spoke up, but he thought we were lying for some reason and put the pork to the side.

For the fennel salad vinaigrette, he used leftover garlic and shallots from the risotto (about a teaspoon of each), along with about 2 liters of olive oil, with a tiny amount of vinegar. The chef insisted that it just needed to sit after we taste tested it, as that is "where the magic happens". Fun fact, if you create a vinaigrette with a tiny amount of garlic, shallots, and vinegar, but then use a lot of olive oil, it just tastes like olive oil - even if you let it sit for a week. To keep track of the souffles in the oven, the chef had an attendee set a timer on her Apple watch for when they would be done. Once time was up, he opened up the oven and asked us if they looked done, because he couldn't tell. Most attendees said "sure" or 'maybe", and he just shrugged his shoulders and agreed with the rest of the class....it was as if he himself was a participant in the class, and not the one paid to be the instructor. The ones we received were raw in the middle.

The absolute worst part was that they didn't portion out enough scallops for the attendees - each person was supposed to get 2 scallops, and they were short 3 people. The chef rushed to pull some extra scallops out and cook them up. Unfortunately, they were not fully thawed and the centers were still a bit raw, as my partner was unfortunate enough to find out. I tried a bite and almost gagged; we both felt sick for the rest of the night.

It was an absolutely awful experience and is not worth the $99/person price. As far from a "Date Night" experience as you could...

TLDR: if you are looking for a hands-on cooking class where you make the entire meal, LOOK ELSEWHERE.

I surprised my fiance for his birthday with a cooking class on June 8, for the "Italian Trattoria" class, thinking this would be a really cute and fun hands-on date-night experience. It was anything but. In fact, we paid $198 to watch a rather quiet and unengaging young man cook food for us. We were supposed to cook steak, make pasta, make two sauces (one for pasta, one for steak), put together a salad, and make peach sorbet. The only thing we did was make the dough and run it through the pasta attachment. Every other aspect, and I truly mean EVERY single aspect of the rest of the dinner, we watched him. Cut. Chop. Pour. Mix. Flip. We all stood around the kitchen island and watched him cook. I had to continually ask questions like "what are you doing now? How long do you let it rest? What did you just pour in the pot?" because he would forget to explain what he was doing. It was such a disappointing experience and quite frankly a waste of money. I can't believe we paid so much money for a "hands-on" cooking class, yet we only were hands on with about 10% of the meal. We have always wanted to experience a cooking class and we finally had the time in our schedule and we left completely disheartened and bummed. The kicker to end it all: there weren't enough chairs for us to sit and eat our meal, so some of us had to stand. Just an all-around poor experience. We were told we would be receiving the recipes to the meals that were made for us, and this has still not been provided to us.

I hope this Ann Arbor location does some revamping of this class and provides some teaching and guidance to the chef who led our class, and encourage him to allow the students to participate more. If that's not possible, perhaps more clear expectation on the website (explaining this is more of an observational class rather than a hands-on experience) would prevent others from experiencing the disappointment...

I didn’t want to leave a negative review without first giving Sur La Table’s customer service a chance to address my concerns. Unfortunately, despite reaching out, I never received a response. After looking into recent reviews for the Ann Arbor Sur La Table location, I realized my experience wasn’t an isolated incident—many of the most recent reviews are also 1-star, citing similar issues with class quality and organization.

We recently attended a family birthday celebration cooking class at Sur La Table, and unfortunately, our experience was disappointing due to a significant misstep during the session.

The class involved making a quiche, which required the pie crust to be prepared well in advance. However, when it came time to use the crusts, the culinary instructor discovered that all of them were over-browned and, in many cases, burnt. Because of the time needed to remake them properly, there was no opportunity to correct the mistake during the session.

Despite the chef's professionalism and our understanding of unexpected mishaps, we found it unacceptable that a culinary instructor—especially one with extensive experience teaching classes—was not prepared with a contingency plan. As a result, all participants were left to use a clearly substandard and overcooked product, which negatively affected the quality and outcome of the dish we were there to learn.

Given the premium price of the class and the reputation of Sur La Table, we expected a higher standard of preparation and service. This experience left our family celebration feeling underwhelming and not reflective of the quality we were promised.

We hope this feedback is taken seriously so that future guests receive the level of care and professionalism...