Seasonal Tuscan Workshops
Our culinary workshops are designed for people who love Italian food and wine and want to delve deeper into the culture and traditions of our little corner of Tuscany.
Each workshop is highly seasonal and highly local, and so the exact itinerary and format for each workshop changes according to the seasons, but generally we will meet every morning and spent the day together until the late afternoon.
We visit the market and the 4th generation Slow Food butcher, to gather ingredients. We might visit a local cheesemaker, the local biodynamic winemaker or the brothers who grow their own ancient grain wheat and bake bread. We may even pop into the studio of a ceramicist in the nearby ceramic town or don beekeeping suits to do a deep dive on beekeeping on a beautiful farm near Florence.
We always go hunting for truffles in the woods because we are lucky enough to live in an area where there are different varieties of truffles in different seasons: black summer truffles, autumn white truffles and spring bianchetto truffles all grow locally to San Miniato.
We will cook together, taste wine together, you'll get your hands covered in flour, learning about local traditions on the way. We eat and drink together, tasting natural wines chosen by Marco and visiting our favourite trattoria in the countryside for a long Italian lunch to give you the full Tuscan experience.
We have designed this intimate workshop (only 8 spots) to run from 10am to late afternoon, giving you free time in the evenings (other than our first evening together where we will cook you a special dinner in the Enoteca) to go and explore, rest or perhaps sample one of the restaurants in town. We are based in the heart of town, everything is within a short walking distance and there are plenty of options for accommodation in town for a variety of budgets (see our suggestions here).
Below is an example of an itinerary — as mentioned, the itinerary changes according to the seasons. In the spring and the late autumn, the brothers who grow ancient grain also have an excellent artichoke grove and we will go out in the fields and harvest some artichokes and taste them raw or in their artichoke “ragu”. In the summer when it’s hot, we might skip seeing the fields and take refuge by checking out the mill instead. We will do our best to stay cool in the summer months (the kitchen and enoteca are air-conditioned) and hunting in the shady woods for summer truffles is another great way to do that. In the autumn begins the most anticipated season in San Miniato: white truffle season. We’ve combined the white truffle workshop to coincide with one of the weekends of the fantastic annual White Truffle Festival, when the city comes alive with food stalls and the scent of white truffle in the air. In fact, the White Truffle workshop will include a day visiting the white truffle festival and tasting many wonderful things on offer (please note that there is an additional supplement (200 euro per person) during White Truffle season due to the market price of white truffles that we will be cooking with, hunting for and sampling throughout the workshops).
A sample itinerary
Day 1: Arrival day; after you’ve had a chance to arrive and settle in to San Miniato, we meet in the late afternoon for a tour around town to get your bearings, followed by casual “aperiti-cena” (aperitivo dinner!) with natural wines in Enoteca Marilu.
Day 2: We start with a visit to the local market to pick up fresh ingredients, pop in to the Slow Food butcher for some prosciutto and finocchiona or perhaps some of their famous sausages, then we get into the kitchen to cook a seasonal, three course meal together which we will enjoy with a Tuscan wine lesson by Marco at our long table.
Day 3: We leave San Miniato at 9:30am and head into the woods for a truffle hunt with a tartufaio (truffle hunter) and his fluffy Lagotto dog. San Miniato is home to a variety of truffles that are in season all year — black truffles in the summer, white truffles in the autumn and winter and bianchetto in the spring so we do this year round. In the kitchen you'll learn how to use truffles in savoury but also sweet dishes and we will enjoy these with paired wines which Marco will explain so you can learn some tips on how to pair your own food and wine.
Day 4: This morning starts with a smaller cooking lesson in the Enoteca Marilu kitchen, depending on the season — we might make our own liqueurs from herbs foraged around the medieval walls of San Miniato, or perhaps a baking lesson of Tuscan pastries or preserves like pickled vegetables, fig leaf or elderflower syrup or seasonal jam. We will then have lunch at a local biodynamic winery with a tasting of 5 of their wines (including a rare indigenous grape), along with a visit of their vineyard and fifteenth century cantina. Before we head back into town, we will visit a rustic goat cheese farm for a cheese tasting.
Day 5: Today we visit two brothers who are artichoke and ancient grain growers and bakers for a demonstration on how they make their rustic loaves in their handmade woodfired oven. Depending on the season and the weather, we’ll visit their fields (or the flour mill), and have a tasting of their ancient grain breads (in the spring we cannot miss their artichoke groves). Then we have a long and leisurely lunch at our favourite countryside trattoria for a classic Tuscan experience before we say goodbye.
Note: There are seasonal variations in this itinerary all the time, hence why this is a “sample”, for example, in artichoke season we will visit an artichoke grower and taste artichokes directly in the field. Sometimes the goats cheesemaker doesn’t have any cheese for us to taste (like when the goats are pregnant!) and so we have another wonderful plan in mind for that. In the spring there are also many wonderful herbs and flowers to forage and so these might be included in the cooking classes too, say, to make our own amaro or vermouth. Every season brings different things for us to see and taste.
The workshop costs 1,600 per person (for October and November workshop which involve extra special white truffles, there is an additional cost of 200 euro, so total of 1,800 per person for the autumn workshops).
What is included:
Three hands on cooking classes with an award winning cookbook author Emiko Davies
A Tuscan wine lesson and a wine pairing lesson with sommelier Marco Lami
A seasonal truffle hunt in the woods with a truffle hunter and his dog, including truffles which we will prepare for lunch
A visit to a biodynamic winery on a 15th century estate with a Tuscan lunch and 5 wine tastings
Tour of San Miniato and tastes around town — coffee, pastries, salumi and aperitivo!
Visits of local farmers, producers, butcher and other artisans
Lunch every day, including one out at our favourite trattoria in the countryside
An exclusive welcome dinner at Enoteca Marilu
Transport included for all the visits in the itinerary above
Delicious natural wine and organic ingredients during meals
A tasty gift bag of San Miniato goodies!
Taxes
This price includes taxes, all the food and wine classes, tastings, snacks, lunch and visits, as well as transport during the workshop and a gift bag. The cost does not include flights, accommodation, travel insurance or transport to/from San Miniato (but we are happy to help arrange pick up or transfers if you need help).
To book or ask any questions just email us.
To find out more about getting to San Miniato, which is about 40 minutes from Florence and 30 minutes from Pisa by car or train, take a look at this info sheet I put together.
To confirm, we require a deposit of 30% upon booking; the remainder should be paid before the workshop starts. This booking is non-refundable unless we are notified at least 90 days beforehand of a cancellation. We can however accept someone to take your place or we can give you a voucher towards any other classes to use within one year. We reserve the right to cancel a workshop if we do not reach the minimum number (4 guests) and in this case deposits will be fully refunded. This is a small and curated workshop; there are only 8 spots in each workshop.
Photos above by Tania Timk.