Sur La Table — Local services in Raleigh

If I could give this store zero stars, I would. Their staff has been incredibly rude every time I have visited this store for overpriced junk that you can buy on Amazon. Unfortunately, I was forced to visit this location more than once as I was given a gift card for Christmas. On one occasion they wouldn't let me return a spice rack that could not fit in my cabinet, even though I had the receipt and it was brand new. They had the very same item still on the shelf for sale. Wouldn't even offer a store credit. On another occasion I figured I'd use some of the gift card money to get my very favorite Shun knife sharpened. What an absolute mistake. I called to see if they would be able to sharpen while I waited. They said yes. Upon entering the store, I was told that "the woman who sharpens knives" was busy helping a customer and I was next. Much like other reviews I read, she offered the two gentleman a cappuccino as I stood there waiting. Most likely because they were spending money. Did I get offered one over my measly $5 knife sharpening? No. She sharpened my knife. Put it back in the box and I went on my way. Upon arriving home I could see that the gorgeous patina on my knife had been ruined. with unsightly scrapes all over the knife. My husband took the knife back over, expecting some sort of resolution. The woman who sharpened it said that they have a machine do the sharpening and it is for industrial knives (whatever that means). She said I should have known this and then seriously asked what we expected from a $5 knife sharpening. Wow. How was I expected to know ANY of this as THEY provide the service. I didn't see her put it in a machine. It doesn't matter how much the service costs. You expect some responsibility and accountability from a major store. Also, I was told she was "the only one who could do it". That made me believe it would be done by hand or with some kind of care... So, at 5:30pm on a Friday she offered to "call corporate" and see what could be done. My husband left the store and I am not kidding, within five minutes she called him and said that corporate could do nothing. Are you seriously telling me that after hours she got a response from corporate in five minutes. I highly doubt it. I doubt she even tried. They offered to refund my $5. That is all. I am so upset and disgusted by this horror show of a customer service experience. I will let the remaining gift card balance go to waste. I will NEVER shop at a Sur La Table again. EVER. Please do yourself a favor and avoid this store at all costs. And whatever you do- DO NOT get your knives sharpened (read: RUINED) here. Go to the fine gentleman at the Farmer's Market. Which is what I usually do. He...

parisian pastry class - 4/10 mediocre. mise en place set up, instructor assistant helping clean up empty bowls. as a group (4 groups of 4), we 1) began with making kouign-amann (made 9), cronuts (made 6), croissants (made 4). tasks were rolling pre-made dough, forming pastries, egg wash. 2) then learnt lamination. tasks were to whip butter in kitchenaid to create beurrage. learned how pre-made dough was formed, put ingredients in kitchenaid, brief hand kneading, rolled out dough to learn letter folding

unfortunate: 1) instructor burnt our cronuts while she walked around to put powdered sugar on other groups' (she did say right before don't walk away from anything frying) and she definitely pretended to not hear when our group said they were burnt. to her defense, frying is hard but the assistant or any of us could have done the sugar 2) our flour for the dough had a tiny fly in it. the instructor pinched it out but before replacing the flour, said "was there really a fly in there" when we did indeed see her pinch and rub it off on her hand 3) pricey for the very (very!) minimal hands-on time

good: knowledgeable instructor, informative, had a 15 min break in the middle, offered small discounts on store items and future cooking classes. pastries baked during break and we snacked, got to take home 1 croissant each + whatever was left of the cronuts and kouign amann divided amongst the 4 of you. post-class email includes recipe background, terms, graphics, and steps.

feedback: 1) instructor should have their own set up instead of going around to groups demoing a step saying "can i use your group to show everyone". this takes away from the group individuals being able to do that step themselves (since it's a group activity and everything is set up for you, hands on time is already quite minimal). plus, the group could take the instructor leftovers as a control group and compare their own 2) if chef meribeth could have acknowledged the burnt food instead of trying to cover it up with powdered sugar and serving it to us. such a waste.

i was very much looking forward to this but i...

I have to say this was disappointing. The chef didn’t have much experience preparing Asian cuisine before so he spent a lot of time reading off the notes, you couldn’t hear what he was saying and we were left countless times looking at our partners asking, “what are we supposed to do”.

There was a lead chef and two helpers who tried to make their way around the 4 groups as best as they could but it was hard to follow. The helpers didn’t know what they were supposed to be doing which was disappointing. We spent half the time looking for guidance and looking for tools which they kept taking to wash them. Why I’m not sure. The chef didn’t prepare what we were supposed to do and then show us, he just talked through it and expected us to run with it from there.

We made 1 spicy tuna roll and tempura vegetables. The tuna as the chef explained “wasn’t the best tuna as it was frozen”. The roll turned out ok but it was literally seaweed, rice and a piece of tuna.

For vegetable tempura we’re were provided a zucchini, onion and sweet potato which we split with our partners and then got to practice knife skills. The tempura batter was prepared using the ingredients provided but the batter turned out pretty thick and we had to ask for more liquid which was quickly added and then off he went. They had the chef deep fry our vegetables and of course we were the last group of 4. By the time he got to use our veggies had frozen to the tray in the blast freezer which may have helped the batter stick.

All in all a super expensive lesson on knife skills, a sushi roll and a few pieces of tempura but my daughter and I had fun. For $200 I had high expectations but this fell very short.

Some thoughts for improvement: Have the chef practice the recipes before running a class Show us what we’re supposed to do and how it should look like Educate the helpers on the whole process Double check to ensure ALL the tools and ingredients are out and ready to go Have the helpers provide guidance during the process which would speed things up a lot Use a bigger deep fryer to cook the...