Hudson Table Brooklyn — Attraction in New York

In brief - this is not a cooking class, the website contains false advertising, and the business owner is rude and ego-driven. The longer version: I bought a new grill and was excited to learn how to cook, hence took this class, as they claimed it was a fully hands on experience. From their website: "Our chefs will walk you through the end-to-end process of creating a refined meal, covering kitchen safety, culinary techniques, and how to put a beautiful meal on the table." This is however, not even close to true. They spelled out a list of 5-6 dishes we'd make, but nearly all the dishes were either made before the class or made by one person, with the rest not or barely involved. For example, the chef sent one person to the corner to make a desert. The rest of the table participants didn't even know what went in it. The shrimp dish main broth was already made before the class - what was left was to dump shrimp inside and for one person to add a beat egg, that was essentially it. The salad was essentially made by one person too. Here's a list of what I did in this 3 hour "class": 1. cut an iceberg lettuce in four. 2. put 10 pieces of shrimp in a pre-made broth. 3. whisked a sauce when the other person got tired. That's it. In contacting the company, the representative, and then the owner, took 0% responsibility for a poorly designed class, and instead blamed 100% of it on a controlling couple we worked with. Said the owner: "I have taken classes where I literally do nothing but chop an onion and your entire experience was 100% steered by the couple you were with." The owner was not able to comprehend that he is the one in charge of sending 1 of 4 students to a corner to make a dish alone, and it's he who decided to pre-make dishes, and he who put false information on his site. They tried to give me a partial gift card - so I would spend even more money at their place, and they figure they are doing me a favor. "Please stop emailing my staff - we have a very busy holiday season." To be fair, I'll mention the staff present (not the owner) were nice, and the food at least tasted good. But I can eat at thousands of restaurants, I was there to learn how to cook. I did learn the stereotypical truth: chefs have big and stubborn egos; well, at least I got something out of it.

UPDATE: following the public response from the owner, not only will I obviously not attend further, but others can now make the call of whether to give this place their business. An owner who blames everyone but himself. Blaming my interpretation of the class, instead of acknowledging his site literally says "hand on" and "end-to-end" and that a reader may expect just that. Blaming 100% of everything another person who attended the class instead of himself. Passive-aggressive with "insanely long review" and elsewhere. Consider if he treats his staff and other clients in an equally obtuse and ego-driven way. Not able to take constructive feedback that's obviously true and realize it may actually help him. I'm not counting on it, but perhaps after a few more years of running a business he'll become accepting and perhaps...

I originally learned about Hudson Table through a Facebook advertisement and figured this sounds very interesting why not give the cooking class a try and learn new recipes from different cuisines. To this day we actually use those recipes at home and still love them. We enjoyed our experience so much that we decided to try out the Chef Competitions and my OH MY! It is one of the best food experiences of my life. Being able to watch chefs create appetizers, entrees and desserts with mystery ingredients all while interacting with the guests is extremely unique on its own but my favorite part is tasting the creative dishes especially the desserts. These are all items that I would most likely never order in a restaurant but learned to really like or love! It's safe to say my palate has changed drastically. They also have great alcohol and non alcoholic beverage choices too!!

Because of everything, I decided I just had to host my baby shower at Hudson Table too! Anna coordinated my event via email, answered all my questions in such a timely manner. She kept everything very straight forward which made this aspect extremely simple and stress free for me. A few of my guests had food allergies so she was able to coordinate with Chef Koray the adjustments necessary for everyone to have a safe and tasty experience. Obviously the best part is the food! Chef Koray created beautiful and delicious appetizers, entrees and a heavenly dessert for my event. All my guests have been raving about the food and asking for recipes since the baby shower. People are telling me things like "I'll never find bruschetta that tastes that amazing" and "I didn't expect much from the zucchini but I couldn't believe how delicious it was"! Besides the amazing food, all the HT staff are extremely warm and welcoming too. HT is such a wonderful place!! Highly...

We are still in complete awe at what the Hudson Table Brooklyn team was able to pull together for our post-elopement dinner, with only a few weeks notice!

Planning - From our first email inquiry, Allen and Anna were so thoughtful, helpful, and patient with all of our (many) questions. They were 100% the reason we were able to pull off our event with such little time to spare. Anna was also at the event, which made things run so smoothly - we didn't have to worry about a thing except showing up and having a great time.

Location - It was a little nerve-wracking to book a venue without seeing it, but we couldn't have been happier when we did a walk-through right before the event. The vibe of the space was exactly what we were looking for - intimate without being too stuffy, a great design / floor layout which helped the party flow, a small outdoor patio area for overflow, beautiful lighting and ambience, and of course the amazing open kitchen in the center. We barely had to bring any decor, which made things much easier on us; just wish we had taken even more photos.

Food/Drinks - Our guests were nonstop raving all night about the food, and we were sooo happy with the amazing menu by Chef Simon and his team. The results were even better than we could have hoped, and they even incorporated some minor feedback we had on an initial menu draft. I know we'll be talking about it for years to come. Anna also chose the perfect drinks to go along with the menu; everyone loved the wine selections and the orange wine could not be poured fast enough :)

All in all my advice is to stop your search and book this place for your event today!!! You will not regret it!

P.S. A great side-bonus is that the space is usually in use for group cooking classes, which I know will make an amazing, nostalgic...