Sur La Table — Local services in West Palm Beach

My fiance and I took the Parisian Steakhouse class Sunday night for his birthday and were incredibly disappointed and would like a full refund. This was a huge waste of time and money. The menu was: Cast Iron Steak in a Red Wine Sauce, Truffle Mashed Potatoes, Pear & Hazelnut Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette and Espresso Chocolate Mousse with Whipped Cream.

All of the recipes except for the steak were missing key ingredients. The Pear & Hazelnut salad had no pears, no hazelnuts and no frisee lettuce. The truffle mashed potatoes were missing truffles and the espresso chocolate mouse with whipped cream was missing whipped cream.

Sur la table emailed us the recipes ahead of the class but there were no recipes provided during the class to follow so we had to follow what the instructor was telling us. The instructor didn't share any techniques or skills (didn't explain how to separate an egg, didn't explain what dicing is, what mincing is etc. so no one knew what they were doing).

When making chocolate mousse it's incredibly important to make things in the correct order. The instructor dumped the sugar in a pot of chocolate and the sugar was supposed to go into the egg whites. I also think he tripled the recipe and the measurements were incorrect because he put 3 full sticks of butter in the chocolate (each recipe called for 6 oz, not 8oz).

All of the food was basically inedible. Our steaks were raw, the salad was awful, the mashed potatoes were lumpy and wet with skins in them (we were supposed to use a food mill and the pre-measured liquid ingredients were wrong and he had us just throw everything into the pot with the potatoes and you were supposed to slowly add them), the salad was just lettuce and not good and the espresso mousse was gross (even when we were making it it looked curdled).

I would NEVER take another class at Sur la table and honestly it makes me not even want to purchase any products from Sur la table even though the store is nice. I feel like we were cheated with this class - $160 down the drain. Sur la table owes us a full refund. This is...

Took 1 cooking class at Sur La Table and never again. They advertised the class as "date night" but it is groups of 4 people making one meal together so you and your spouse are making 1 meal with another couple (strangers) so not romantic. You have to keep asking the strangers in your group "Which of us 4 wants to be the one to mix this or slice that?" for 2 solid hours. One of our two mixing bowls had some remnants of food stuck on it, we lacked several necessary tools like a knife and zester. We had to keep asking the instructor for the basic tools. She brought us a knife which was so dull we had to use our fingernails to peel the potatoes. Instructions were almost no existent. The instructor's microphone and speakers were muddy/fuzzy so no one could understand everything she said. The instructor was often at the other side of the room so we could not ask questions. The instructor made the gelato (only one student mixed the ingredients and then the instructor took it to put in the gelato machine so you're not really making gelato). There was one sink for all 16 students and the instructor to wash their hands and it ran out of paper towels before the end. The other 2 people in your group will be using their hands a lot to make the meal that the 4 of you will eat later and they keep touching their phones to take photos in between kneading dough, slicing veg. Gross. And not one bench or place to sit so when you show up 10 or 15 minutes early you stand awkwardly outside the classroom and then stand nonstop for the 2+ hour class. No wine....

Took my second cooking class here tonight and was drastically different then my first one over two years ago(which was great). I bought this experience for friends as a gift/double date. It was $400 for the 4 of us. Not worth it at all.

Chef seemed out of it, unprepared and unhappy to be there. He was constantly making mistakes, speaking barely so everyone could hear and flustered. For the “dessert” he very poorly explained how he made it and told us we wouldn’t be making it due to time constraints. So what did I pay $400 for?

They ran out of eggs which is surprising considering you’d likely have a few extra ingredients on hand as accidents do happen. The meal came out horribly and everyone seemed to agree, the homemade pasta stuck together in big clumps and was gummy. The chicken was a mess and he said the oven was acting up so we’d have to squeeze them into one. He used the raw meat tongs to fish out pasta out of the water, we exclaimed “wait those have raw meat!” And he said oh it’ll boil off. The meat seemed frozen and when I asked if that was ok the assistant said “it’s not frozen just very cold.” The pair next to us didn’t touch their food and threw it all away.

Overall, he lacked enthusiasm and general teachability. The class was fumbled and unexciting and the food was a waste.

I love cooking classes and really enjoyed my first a few years ago. I hope they find better...