Hands-on pasta making with a local chef. €60-110/person, 3-4 hours, and you eat everything you make.
Plan your Italy trip →Bologna is called "La Grassa" (The Fat One) because of its food. The city's pasta tradition is Italy's deepest — egg-rich sfoglia rolled paper-thin, filled and shaped into tortellini, tortelloni, tagliatelle, lasagne, and balanzoni. The sfogline (pasta-making women) are living national treasures. Learning from one is like taking a guitar lesson from a blues master in Mississippi.
Making sfoglia from scratch (egg + 00 flour, nothing else). Rolling with a mattarello (2-meter rolling pin) until the sheet is translucent. Cutting tagliatelle (exactly 8mm wide — there's a gold tagliatella in the Bologna Chamber of Commerce vault). Filling and folding tortellini (the most challenging shape — it takes years to master, but you'll make recognizable ones in 30 minutes). Everything cooked and eaten with ragù, butter/parmigiano, and brodo.
Look for classes taught by actual sfogline (not generic cooking school instructors). Le Cesarine network matches travelers with home cooks. Some classes take place in home kitchens in the Quadrilatero market area — you shop for ingredients at the morning market, then cook them. This is the gold standard: €80-120/person, 4 hours, unforgettable.
Tell us what you love eating — we'll find the perfect class, tour, or tasting.
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