Three couples from San Diego, California were splitting an Airbnb in Menaggio, on Lake Como, for a week — old friends who don’t get a group trip together often enough. Partway through the stay, the forecast turned: rain, cold, definitely not lake weather. Boat rides and long lunches on a terrace were off the table, at least for a day or two, and nobody wanted to spend an afternoon stuck inside scrolling for something to do. Searching for an indoor activity that still felt like a real part of the trip — something tied to the culture they’d actually come to Italy for — they found a cooking class, booked just four days ahead, with the chef arriving that afternoon.
It turned into the evening everyone talked about for the rest of the trip.
Why a cooking class works especially well for a group of friends
Six adults who know each other well don’t need a formal, quiet tasting menu — they need something to do together, with wine in hand, that ends in a proper Italian dinner. A cooking class in a rented apartment hits a different note than a restaurant dinner or even a standard private chef evening:
- Everyone’s hands are in it. Rolling pasta, learning the actual technique behind a sauce that isn’t just “add ingredients” — it’s genuinely instructive, not a performance to watch from a distance.
- It’s built for a group, not individual plates. Three couples working in pairs or as a team, with the chef moving between them, correcting technique, keeping the wine topped up and the mood loose.
- Dinner is the payoff, not a separate event. Once the class wraps up, the same dishes the group just made are plated properly and served as a real multi-course dinner — the class isn’t a warm-up act, it’s the first half of the evening.
How it works in an Airbnb apartment
Menaggio apartments aren’t always built with a professional kitchen in mind, but that’s rarely a problem:
- A short conversation beforehand. Sometimes the group picks one of the chef’s existing menus and cooks the whole thing together as it’s written. Just as often, someone in the group already has a dish in mind — something they’ve always wanted to learn to make — and the menu gets built around that request instead, adjusted to fit what the group actually wants to walk away knowing how to cook.
- The chef arrives about four hours before the agreed dinner time, with the shopping already done and every piece of equipment needed for that specific menu packed and ready — not every Airbnb kitchen comes properly equipped, and improvising with whatever happens to be in the drawers isn’t an option when a technique genuinely calls for the right tool.
- Nearly the entire menu is cooked together, from scratch — not a couple of demonstration dishes on the side while the chef handles the rest, but the group actually working through most of the menu itself, hands in the dough, learning technique as they go.
- The kitchen doubles as the evening’s best conversation. Cooking side by side naturally opens things up — the group gets to know the chef, and the chef shares stories and tricks picked up over two decades of cooking across Michelin kitchens and luxury hotels, the kind of anecdotes that don’t come up over a restaurant table.
- Once everything is ready, the group gets some time to relax — showering, changing, unwinding on the terrace — while the chef sets the table and reorganizes the kitchen for service.
- Dinner service, where the chef plates and finishes what was made, brings out the courses properly, and the group sits down to eat as a real dinner — not standing around a kitchen island with plates in hand.
- Kitchen cleaned and reset at the end, so the group’s last hours in the apartment are spent on the terrace with a last glass of wine, not doing dishes.
Why this matters more on Lake Como specifically
Lake Como’s charm depends heavily on the weather — a rainy, cold afternoon can flatten an itinerary built around boats, terraces, and long walks along the shore, and it happens more often during a week-long stay than most visitors plan for. Menaggio is also a lively but small lakefront town — plenty of good restaurants, but also plenty of evenings where six people want a table together on short notice and can’t quite get it, or end up split between two smaller tables. A cooking class in the apartment solves both problems at once: it turns a washed-out afternoon into one of the best parts of the trip, and sidesteps the restaurant logistics entirely.
The cultural bonus
But there’s something beyond logistics here too. Cooking is one of the truest symbols of Italy — arguably as central to the culture as any museum or monument on the itinerary. Spending an afternoon immersed in it, side by side with someone who has spent two decades not just cooking but working across Michelin kitchens and luxury hospitality, turns the class into something closer to cultural enrichment than entertainment. It isn’t only about the food that ends up on the table — it’s a genuine window into why Italians cook the way they do, told by someone who has lived it professionally, not read it off a script.
Good to know
- No cooking experience needed — the class is built for total beginners as easily as for people who already know their way around a kitchen.
- Works well for groups of four to eight, ideal for a shared villa or apartment rental among friends.
- The chef brings any equipment the rental kitchen might be missing — no need to check in advance what’s in the cupboards.
- Wine can be arranged alongside the class and dinner, or the group can bring their own.
If you’re planning a group trip to Lake Como and want an evening that’s more than just another dinner out, get in touch with your group size and where you’re staying in Menaggio, and the evening can be built around what your friends actually want to cook and eat.