Cook Space

I have had nothing but the best experience at Cook Space! I have taken the pasta and pie baking classes and have been able to incorporate the recipes into my every day cooking. The staff are always very helpful and answer any questions I may have. They email you the recipes after each class and they give you a discount code for your next class which is a nice perk! I will definitely be back!

I took the five week basics class and it was a great experience! I cook regularly and wasn't sure how much I would learn, but the classes increased my confidence in trusting my palate, experimenting with flavor and pushing beyond the boundaries of what my go-to's usually are. Each class ends in a meal consisting of all the dishes made during the class and during this time we got to know each other as well as our instructor, and became inspired by each other's experience. A really fun and relaxed way to up your home cooking skills!

We really enjoyed our private Gluten Free cooking class with Chef Kate! Experiences are hard to come by in quarantine and even though this was over Zoom, Chef Kate was a very warm and wonderful host, providing a perfect blend of commentary, cooking know-how, and just general banter. We definitely will be back for more classes in the future. Thanks Kate and Cook Space team for a great experience!

Overall, I had fun - mainly due to the other class attendees and the food was tasty. However, I've been to much better cooking classes before. The space is really beautiful, but the cooking area was cramped, as there were too many people in the class. If you've never picked up a knife before, you'll learn something in this class; but as someone that cooks regularly, I didn't learn much. The class was split into three groups and my group was assigned with mixing up ingredients for a casserole. I didn't spend over $100 to make a casserole. If there are three groups, then there should have been three dishes which were equally involved where you could learn something and not stand around bored. I wanted to be more hands on - a lot of things were prepared in advance and the complexity of the dishes were lacking for something called a cooking class. Perhaps it was the class I took - Maybe some of the other classes that are skill based (i.e. pasta making, bread making, etc) are more informative.

Recently completed the Culinary confidence course! It was both approachable and insightful leaving me equipped with the necessary cooking skills and confidence to throw together lots of delicious meals. The team is super friendly and I felt as ease despite my scarce knowledge! Can’t recommend enough and I’ll be back!

I enthusiastically endorse Cook Space for your next event! I live in Paris where I work in food, so I am admittedly particular. I flew into NYC to host “Friendsgiving” with 12 of my nearest and dearest, most of whom work in event-planning, food and bev, or design, so it’s a group with high standards, and every single person was blown away. The space feels like an elegant apartment and is more spacious than it looks online. They were reliably responsive from the get-go and always friendly as they worked with me on my specific demands (I wanted poultry from a local producer; I brought my own bread, butter, and cheeses; I made a few menu changes along the way; I had one vegan and one veggie guest). The night of the event, I knew we the chefs had the thoughtfulness I was looking for by the way they thickly cut the bread and displayed the butter, without instruction from me. They prepared a five-course family-style meal that was to die for. The cranberry-orange glazed poultry with thyme stuffing was one of the juiciest birds I’ve ever had, which is especially hard to achieve with the small hens I requested. I can still taste the sage butternut squash. Even the radicchio salad with apple cider vinegar, which I wasn’t particularly excited about, was heavenly. They added a touch of parsley that was unexpected and totally right. Thank you Cook Space team! Shoutout to Eliza, Tom, Sean, and the lovely assistant whose name I forgot but wrote out our last-minute table cards in printshop-worthy cursive. Merci!

Please be aware that if you sign up for a class here — most of which cost more than $100 — that they will refuse to give you any of the recipes as part of your attendance until a week later because, and I’m qoting verbatim here from the owner: “Cook Space is an environment designed specifically to assist students in learning how to cook beyond the recipe, guiding you how to cook through balancing flavors and tasting along the way, which is why we wait until after class to send guests recipes.” While this sounds great and high-minded in theory, it is completely impractical in real life, which is why only a very few cooking schools and recreational class providers engage in this practice. For one thing, it makes it impossible to take notes to accompany a particular recipe, and for another, you have to keep asking the instructor what to do next, which is a big waste of time and focus (especially with complex recipes) that could be devoted to learning or absorbing key information. They also reserve the right to change what they actually cook in class compared to what Cookspace advertises is going to be cooked in class, which again is highly unusual. According to the owner “As noted on the site page, our menus are subject to change ...” If either one of these aspects is problematic for you, think twice about attending Cookspace as there are multiple other cooking classes in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island that do not engage in these practices, including the Institute for Culinary Education.

Great Backing class. Really nice teacher!