Cook Street School of Culinary Arts — Local services in Denver

*Edit after speaking with customer service we are very happy with how they handled everything on our end they were very understanding and helpful - we have a resolution for the issues we have and are happy with the outcome - *

We went to a French Regional Alsace cooking class - the chefs were nice but the overall experience was a huge letdown the flavors were good but several dishes were ruined - for $500 for 4 people it was a HUGE WASTE not only did the meals not turn out but the recipes they sent don't make since either as we tried to recreate the dishes the very next day at home - the proportions are way off...

The first and only thing that came out right was Cherry tartlettes Ben was great ! I would highly recommend him ;)

2nd we made the flammekuchen it was fun to make except they had the sauce already made which at a class isn't helpful.. after making our (pizzas) we sent them back with the chefs to be baked and the entires courses pizzas came back like burnt disks - the flavor was still good. we decided to make it at home with the emailed recipe and the sauce recipe they emailed over is disproportionately just wrong and no flavor - the dough recipe is also very off as well.

On to the last course which was spatzle and Coq au Riesling - They don't have you make the spatzle it was served in a large mixing bowl and was cold at the end of the meal

You do get to make the Coq au Riesling but after doing all the prep work and searing the chicken the chefs take your skillet and "finish it off" on the larger stoves well... Everyone in class was served very raw chicken and cold spatzle we brought it to the chefs attention who denied it at first and I had to cut mine open more and show him - he did his best to make it right and handled the stress great they also comped everyone's drinks but honestly after trying out the recipes and going to the store and liquor store to buy everything to make at home just to have the proportions be awful was the last straw for us. I would not go back...

Staff was excellent, thank you! Would love to see several improvements though. 1) they’re using nonstick pfas pans which is strange for culinary professionals to begin with, but also sad because you’re spending over $200 to eat some forever chemicals with your food. The pans are all ratty and broken down too so you’re getting extra pfas in your blood. 2)as several reviewers have mentioned you start eating around 9:15, after over 3 hours of work. With covid regulations it’s not a fun and relaxing 3 hours either. So you work for 3:15 and then quickly eat for 0:15 before the night is done. We were trying to have a relaxing and fun date night so wanted to cook for maybe an hour or two and then just chill. I cook every night and knew this was a cooking class but still thought I was “taking a night off” to have fun. Instead it felt like I chopped veggies for the entire night and then ate a few bites and went home. Maybe trim the cooking portion down to 1-2 dishes and 2ish hours so there’s time to enjoy? And if people want to learn knife skills while the rest of us are drinking wine, cool? And please get some stainless steel pans. And during covid times could work stations be set up at individual tables so people could eat and drink and enjoy the entire time? Anyways, thanks to the great staff! But we wouldn’t redo the class for these...

Such a great experience! Chef Laith taught us some recipes from Saudi Arabia and included some really great context about how dishes are cooked traditionally. Plus- he demoed the techniques really well to make it easy to follow. I didn't think I could actually make food that tasted that good.

Also some great things I appreciated: Check in was easy and you get a complimentary beverage (they had a wine option from the middle east to compliment the menu selection)

Class size was small and manageable for the chef team to give folks individual attention. Chef's walked around to check on your station (you work in pairs) so you could ask questions and whatnot.

Chef Laith is super knowledgeable about the different techniques and cooking practices and narrates why he performs a certain action (for example, pinching herbs in a way to condense them and make them easier to cut with an elliptical motion).

So, not only is it a lot of fun - you walk away with some legit education from a pro. 10/10, I am planning to do this again for...