One Way to Get Through the Boston Winter? Restaurant Cooking Classes.
Maybe your New Year’s resolution involves sharpening your cooking skills. Or maybe you’re huddled up at home right now, looking at the dark, cold, windy weekends ahead and realizing that it’s time to plot out a winter survival strategy. Either way, Boston-area restaurants are here to help. Multiple places around town are opening their dining rooms on weekend afternoons this winter to host classes on everything from oyster-shucking to challah-making. Grab a group and snag tickets for one of the below classes before they sell out.
Alexis Babineau, the assistant culinary director of chef Will Gilson’s Cambridge Street Hospitality (which includes Puritan & Company, the Lexington, and Amba) is hosting a slew of winter oyster-shucking classes at the group’s Puritan Oyster Bar. On select Sundays in January, February, and March, from 3:45 to 5 p.m., Babineau will lead a small group class in learning proper shucking techniques. No prior experience is necessary. Each $75 ticket includes a beverage, snacks, and an oyster-shucking knife to take home. The first Sunday class is coming up this weekend, on January 12. See the full list of available dates and book your spot here. 1164 Cambridge Street, Inman Square
Babka and challah classes at Bakey
Bakey, the Israeli-rooted Boston bakery founded by famed Danish Israeli baker Uri Scheft — whose chocolate babka is the stuff of legend — is hosting a series of babka and challah-making classes monthly at its downtown shop. On Wednesday, January 22, Wednesday, February 12, and Wednesday, March 5, you can sign up for a two-hour babka-making class from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. On Wednesday, February 5, learn how to perfect your challah in a two-hour class that includes braiding, baking, and decorating your own loaf. Sign up for upcoming workshops here. Tickets are $150 per person for all classes. (There are also a few workshop dates scheduled for later in the spring and early summer if the winter times don’t work.) 151 Tremont Street, downtown Boston
While Eastern Standard’s martini-making class with bartending legend Jackson Cannon on Saturday, January 11 is already sold out, the restaurant is loading up a few other options for diners looking to up their cooking skills this winter. On Sunday, January 19, executive chef Brian Rae is hosting a pasta-making class from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Participants get recipes, fresh pasta to take home, and snacks during the class. On the following Sunday, January 26, Eastern Standard’s head baker Emma Hughes is hosting an afternoon breadmaking class from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Students get a fresh loaf of bread to take home, a recipe to recreate the bread, and snacks during the class. Tickets for each class are $75 apiece and are available here and here. 775 Beacon Street, Fenway
Wine education classes at Alcove
If wine education fits in your vision of upping your cooking skills, gather ‘round. Alcove, the waterfront restaurant with a killer wine cellar, is hosting an afternoon series of “Cellar Saturdays” in January where owner Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli and the team will offer wine education classes focused on different European wine regions. This Saturday, January 11, at 2 p.m., the class is headed to Tuscany, with an afternoon packed with tastings and light snacks. The following Saturday, January 18, it’ll be Bordeaux, and on Saturday, January 25, the Champagne region of France. Tickets for each of the classes are $115 per person and are available here. 50 Lovejoy Wharf, West End
This one is entertaining for both adults and kids. Acclaimed Italian restaurant Tonino is partnering up with Jamaica Plain’s sweet toddler cafe, Little Cocoa Bean Co., to host a pasta-making class for the whole family on Thursday, January 16 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The class will be held at the Jamaica Plain Library and tickets are free; you just need to sign up here. 30 South Street, Jamaica Plain
