Cooking Classes in Spain

Valencia has more paella classes than anywhere in the country, and most follow the same pattern: meet at the Mercado Central, the Modernista market hall in the old town, shop for vegetables, rabbit and the short-grain bomba or senia rice, then cook paella valenciana in a teaching kitchen, finishing with the meal and wine. Classes run about three to four hours and cost about 65 to 90 euros. Book a morning session if you want the market: the Mercado Central closes in the afternoon and on Sundays.

Barcelona’s cooking schools mostly start with a guided walk through La Boqueria off the Rambla, followed by a hands-on class making a Catalan menu: pa amb tomàquet, a seafood or black-ink paella, escalivada and crema catalana. Expect about 70 to 110 euros for a half day. The Boqueria is closed on Sundays and is at its most crowded around midday, so morning classes see it at work. Our Barcelona food guide lists the dishes and markets in detail.

San Sebastián has more Michelin stars per head than almost any city in the world, but the everyday education happens at the bar. A guided pintxo tour takes you through four or five bars in the Parte Vieja, with one specialty and a drink in each, usually txakoli white wine or cider, and explains the etiquette: take what you want from the counter, keep track, and pay at the end. Tours cost roughly 80 to 150 euros.

In Madrid, tapas tours work the bars of La Latina and the Cava Baja and the Mercado de San Miguel beside the Plaza Mayor, and cooking schools teach tortilla, croquetas and gazpacho. In Seville, classes are held inside the Triana market across the river, and tapas tours cover Triana and the Barrio Santa Cruz. Granada is the place to learn tapas culture cheaply, since most bars still give a free tapa with every drink, and Málaga’s Atarazanas market is the start of many food walks.

Jerez de la Frontera is the home of sherry. The big bodegas, including González Byass (Tío Pepe), run daily tours of their cathedral-like cellars with a tasting, from about 20 to 40 euros, and many add tapas pairings. Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, makes manzanilla. For vineyard visits elsewhere, see our Spain wine regions guide.

Jamón ibérico de bellota comes from black pigs that fatten on acorns in the dehesa, the open oak pasture of the southwest. Farms around Jabugo in the Sierra de Aracena and around Guijuelo near Salamanca run tours of the pastures and drying cellars with a tasting, best from October to March when the pigs are out on the acorns.

Jaén province produces more olive oil than any other province in Spain, from a sea of olive groves that covers most of its farmland. Mills and estates around Úbeda and Baeza offer tours and tastings, and the harvest and pressing run from about November to January. In La Mancha, the town of Consuegra celebrates the saffron harvest under its windmills each autumn, and in the Picos de Europa the Cabrales blue cheese is aged in limestone caves, one of which is open to visitors at Arenas de Cabrales.

• Classes: about 60 to 100 euros for a three to four hour class with a meal and wine; private classes cost two to three times that.
• Food tours: about 70 to 150 euros for a three hour tapas or pintxo tour, with food and drinks included.
• Booking: book a few days ahead, more at Easter and in summer. Most classes take 8 to 12 people and teach in English as well as Spanish.
• Timing: markets work in the morning and close on Sundays; tapas tours start in the evening, rarely before 7pm.
• Diets: say so when you book. Spanish cooking leans on ham and seafood, but most schools offer vegetarian versions.