BEST COOKING CLASSES IN TORONTO
by Nicole Crozier
Interested in learning how to prepare healthy dishes from just about every corner of the globe?
Toronto is home to a wide variety of cooking classes and schools where you can learn about everything from macrobiotic foods and the 100-mile diet, to indigenous root vegetables, gluten-free meals and local/seasonal ingredients. You can also learn to cook with celebrity chef instructors.
Here, in random order is a list of 10 OF Toronto BEST cooking schools and classes that focus on healthy eating.
Fully Nourished
Certified nutritional practitioner and chef, Marni Wasserman instructs cooking classes and workshops from her home school. Many of the Fully Nourished classes concentrate on whole foods and nutritional education, while Gourmet & Gluten Free, Calci-Yum and Heart Healthy are a few of the dietary specific classes Marni also teaches classes based around regional cuisine such as Moroccan and Asian.
Class Size: 4-8 people 3 hours
Focus/Specialty: Organic, seasonal & whole food recipes
Unique Class: Naturally sweetened desserts
Marni Washerman - Fully Nurished
Bonnie Stern School of Cooking
Bonnie Stern has been at the forefront of culinary education in Toronto for more than 30 years. Best selling cookbook author, columnist and teacher, Bonnie’s goal is to have fun in the kitchen while making healthy and delicious food.
Nutritionists, farm to fork butchers, chef’s, bakers and celebrity foodies from all over the world teach classes here.
Every month, the school hosts, Bonnie’s Book Club. Membership is not required to participate in a round-table discussion with an author, editor or publisher. The literary food event is complete by sharing a meal prepared by Bonnie.
Make sure to check the class schedule in advance - this school is popular.
Class Size: 25 – 30 for demonstrations
Focus/Specialty: Making healthy food delicious
Unique Class: Book Club
Specials: Registered students enjoy 10 percent of all regular price store products on day of class or book club
Bonnie Stern School of Cooking
Dish Cooking Studio
Trish Magwood - chef, teacher and the creator and host of the television show Party Dish - is the driving force behind Dish - the cooking school, gourmet café, boutique kitchen store and catering service.
With the Dish Cooking Studio look for a market-to-table philosophy using top-quality, seasonal ingredients to create globally inspired dishes. You can learn how to build complex flavours in a Thai curry class, prepare a Tuscan feast, sharpen your knife skills or learn how to buy and cook different types of fish.
Hands-on and demonstration classes are taught in the studio’s, ‘dream kitchen’, using state-of-the-art appliances.
Class Size: Intimate
Focus/Specialty: Tips on presentation and entertaining
Unique Class: Dish Kids
Dish Cooking School
The Big Carrot
Specializing in organically grown, a GMO-free and environmentally safe product, the Big Carrot is a retail store, centre of learning and cooking school.
Concentrating on specific dietary needs, registered nutritional consultants, practitioners in holistic medicine and healing, (and others), prepare and instruct single evening classes.
Learn about the 100 Mile Diet, vegetarian meals, Eastern medicinal cooking and preparing raw desserts. There are classes on specific physical conditions like anti-inflammatory foods and what to eat to build better bones.
This Canadian worker-owned co-operative also offers free Thursday evening lectures. Expect topics like, the 21st century’s addiction to sugar, homeopathy for colds and flu and heart health.
Class Size: Maximum 8 people
Focus/Specialty: Specific dietary needs
Unique Class: Gluten free baking
The Big Carrot
Cirillo’s Culinary Academy
Chef John Cirillo is a multi-award winning chef who teaches culinary techniques and methods to students in a professional setting.
Pastas and sauces, Chinese basics, Spanish tapas, healthy cooking with fish and international rice dishes are some of the classes taught at the Academy. Cooking classes for individuals, couples and families are available.
Class Size: Maximum 24
Focus/Specialty: Culinary techniques and methods
Unique Class: Family Class
Cirillo’s Culinary Academy
Lisa’s Kitchen
Lisa Bixel teaches the basics of nutrition, alternate food choices and how to prepare delicious meals using fresh, organic foods.
Learn to detoxify your organs with juicing and raw foods. Discuss health and humanity reasons for becoming a vegetarian and learn new ways to cook without wheat, sugar or dairy. Make hearty, winter fare with root vegetables and learn to prepare fast, simple and nutritious meals.
Class Size: Maximum 8
Focus/Specialty: Nutrition and alternate food choices
Unique Class: Detoxification
Lisa’s Kitchen
Apona Healing Arts
Learn how to incorporate macrobiotic and healing foods into your daily diet with Lidia Kuleshnyk – a health and lifestyle consultant and member of the Macrobiotic Educators Association.
Hands on and demonstration classes work with ingredients like shiso leaves and chestnuts, burdock, kuzu and other root vegetables to create delicious healing and medicinal meals.
Class Size: Average class size 5
Focus/Specialty: Macrobiotics
Unique Class: Cooking with Herbs
Apona Healing Arts
Urban Living Classes
The Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts at George Brown College offers hands-on, weekend cooking classes to the public.
Famous chefs and other experts instruct on topics like how to be eco-gastronomic and discovering carbon footprint cooking.
The cooking school offers classes that coincide with some of Toronto’s cultural festivals -The Good, The Bad and The Chutney, for instance, is an Urban Weekend available during the Festival of South Asia.
Unique Class: Flavours of the City
The Chef’s House
Arvinda’s Healthy Gourmnet Indian Cooking
A mother-daughter team co-instruct classes focusing on the nutritional and philosophical properties of authentic Indian cuisine.
Hands on and demonstration classes focuses on a belief that what you eat is a reflection of your mental and spiritual self.
Arvinda’s also offers a walking tour of Toronto’s Little India that includes a cooking demo inside a local restaurant.
Class Size: 6 – 20, Private classes available
Focus/Specialty: Foods that boost life and longevity and represent purity, strength, joy and happiness
Unique Class: Little India Walk
Arivinda’s Healthy Gourmet Indian Cooking
Aphrodite Cooks
Hosting Singles Supper Clubs, organized by age group and sexual orientation, as well as Couples Cooking, Aphrodite Cooks is a cooking school with a focus on socializing.
The hands-on classes are instructed by professionally trained chefs and use seasonal and healthy ingredients to prepare a wide variety of dishes.
Classes culminate into a dinner parties where students share the meal they helped create. Aphrodite Cooks does not guarantee a romantic match will be made.
Class Size: 20 – 30 people
Focus/Specialty: Foods that boost life and longevity and represent purity, strength, joy and happiness
Unique Class: Singles Classes
Aprodite Cooks
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Nicole Crozier is an editorial assistant at Travel to Wellness.
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