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SICILIAN COOK IN TUSCANY

PRIVATE CHEF AND COOKING CLASSES

 
 

SICILIAN COOK IN TUSCANY

PRIVATE CHEF AND COOKING CLASSES

ANTONELLA LA MACCHIA

I have been working as a private chef and giving cooking classes in Florence and Tuscany now for more than 10 years.

My aim is to guide you through an amazing immersion experience all about Italian food.

The knowledge behind the ingredients, the culinary skills, the Tuscan traditions and my personal Sicilian heritage: they’re all the things I love to share.

My Cuisine

Private Chef in Tuscany

A talented local chef directly at your home

To truly understand Italy, you must explore its cuisine. Make your stay in Tuscany unforgettable: local ingredients, traditional recipes, and seasonal menus will enable you to savor a unique experience.

All you need to do is select your menu and take a seat at the table.

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A variety of black radishes neatly arranged on a cutting board. Perfect for cooking classes in Tuscany with local ingredients!
A person carefully arranges homemade tortellini on a baking sheet during a cooking class in Tuscany.

Cooking classes

An authentic experience with a professional cook in a friendly atmosphere

To teach is to share. Throughout the lesson, I will introduce you to some recipes from our tradition, but more importantly, I will try to convey what cuisine signifies in Italian culture and why I am so passionate about it.

Because the most authentic connections are built around the table.

Discover my classes
Experience the magic of Antonella La Macchia Cooking Classes in Tuscany
Antonella La Macchia, a Sicilian cook in Tuscany, skillfully cutting pasta on a cutting board.

TESTIMONIALS

Antonella held a fun class with great attention to detail so we fully understood the pasta making process. The class was a small group of just 4 of us so there was plenty of time for Antonella to answer any questions and give us individual attention / advice. The best part was eating all the delicious food at the end with a nice glass of wine. Special mention to Antonella’s husband for lending a helping hand and giving some nice tips about Florence. The home made limoncello was a bonus.

Scott P.Australia
cookly.me

Fantastic – Real Italian cooking experience!
Easy when you know how! Thank you Antonella. Grazie mille !

Marisa H.Switzerland
cookly.me

Four Pastas with Antonella
Antonella created one of our most memorable experiences for my husband, college student daughter and me. She is very knowledgeable and taught us about the ingredients and technique. More importantly, she has the wonderful warmth that has you leave with the feeling that she is a dear friend. Sharing our delicious meal of four fresh pastas was a priceless experience we highly recommend. Her husband, Ricardo, was a charming assistant. It was truly a pleasure to enjoy the kind hospitality of Antonella and Ricardo and one should not leave Florence without doing so. I only wish I had the opportunity to hire her as a personal chef.

Jessica L.U.S.A.
cookly.me

Excellent
Antonella taught me everything I had wanted to know about authentic pasta making and everything was delicious. I am serious about my cooking and I had made homemade pasta before and the class helped me to refine and correct my techniques. We did four different pastas with sauces and Pestos. Her and her husband are lovely respectful people and everything was pristine and relaxed. I recommend it highly. Thank you!

Jessica L.South Africa
cookly.me

TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS

Luca Bastianelli
Luca Bastianelli
2023-12-31
Cena perfetta Antonella è stata superlativa, chef di livello, accoglienza superlativa. Una nota di merito particolare a Riccardo, esperto sommelier e direttore di sala unico
Frank C
Frank C
2023-11-30
Antonella La Macchia dinner party We had a group of 12 people celebrating my sister’s birthday in a villa in Impruneta. Antonella provided the birthday dinner for us and she was amazing! She planned every detail and provided a four course meal that was perfectly timed and delicious. All of the guests cannot stop talking about the wonderful experience that we had. In addition, she and her staff are wonderful people and were so much fun for a dinner party such as this!
Mel and Robbie C
Mel and Robbie C
2023-10-09
An incredible experience! Antonella and Ricardo were fantastic hosts! They arranged a transfer from our hotel and we had a private class with just 4 of us. Food was amazing and we sampled lots of wines. We LOVED how we got to dine with them aswell, felt like a family. Still dreaming of the food...
autumnheb
autumnheb
2023-10-07
Amazing!!! We had the most amazing time having Antonella as our private chef for a family dinner while we were in Florence! Our Airbnb provided many challenges for Antonella including a non working oven, minimal induction pans for use, and a power outage but Antonella was able to still create the most magical dinner. This was our best dinner we had in Florence and we hope we have the chance to come back soon!
pal6860
pal6860
2023-08-08
Wonderful private cooking class with a gem of a teacher in Antonella! Such a wonderful private cooking class from a gem of a host in Antonella!!! We emailed a few times before coming to Florence, came up with a menu, and Antonella and her wonderful husband Riccardo came and provided the most wonderful time we had on our entire trip! We made Ravioli Cacio e Pepe, Pici pasta with mushrooms, and a wonderful chocolate ricotta torte. Antonella and Riccardo came to our private Airbnb, brought all the supplies themselves, and even brought us two WONDERFUL bottles of wine (our new favorite Chianti!). Truly (and we had some great meals in Florence), Antonella’s meal was truly the best! It was fun making everything by hand from scratch, Antonella was GREAT with our 3 teenagers, but most enjoyable, was eating our newly crafted meal and shoring laughs and wonderful conversation with Antonella and Riccardo. They insisted that we enjoy our meal privately, but we insisted they share with us, and that truly was such a special time. We felt like family together, and will definitely call upon Antonella again when we return! Thank you Antonella for such a special experience!!!!
Brittany K
Brittany K
2023-08-06
Private Cooking Class Cooking with Antonella was a highlight of our week in Tuscany! We made gnocchi with Gorgonzola cream, pork involtini, tiramisu and chocolate cake! She was wonderful with kids and adults alike, making it an easy process to make a gourmet meal for 10 people. It was worth every cent- if you are thinking of doing it, don’t hesitate and book her!!!!
donna873
donna873
2023-06-29
Best cooking experience! Antonella was fantastic! We did both private cooking classes and private dinners at our rented villa. She has infinite patience when teaching a cooking class. She is great with children as well. She is a fabulous chef. We used are several times and every time was devine. Her husband comes and helps her. He is super sweet and picks out great wines to accompany the meals.
Asia
Asia
2023-06-18
The cooking class of my dreams!! Words cannot describe how marvelous this cooking class was. Not only were we enraptured by the experience of cooking in the Florentine hills, but Antonella was absolutely phenomenal! We feel as though we made a dear friend for life! She was incredible personable, patient and funny! it was as though we went to dine with a friend. Antonella has an incredible gift. The meal was outstanding, the scenery spectacular and the company unmatched. Thank you Antonella! We can't wait to visit again!
Bailey Sawyer
Bailey Sawyer
2023-06-13
A Perfect Morning in Tuscany Antonella's cooking class was an unforgettable part of our trip to Florence that my friends and I will cherish for years to come! She came highly recommended by another friend who had visited recently - I couldn't have been more happy with the experience and will be eagerly recommending it myself. The morning of, we packed into our Fiat, and thirty minutes later we were on the beautiful grounds of her Tuscan home. Antonella had provided us with sample menus of three dishes we could prepare together - we chose lemon and ricotta ravioli, gorgonzola gnocchi, and a fruit tart. She's a master at what she does - so knowledgable, all while being so warm and passionate about sharing her gifts with others. It was lovely getting to know her over the course of the class as well as her husband Riccardo, who assisted her along the way. To finish, we shared our lunch together over wine, with beautiful views of her yard and the rolling hills. She sent us the recipes we learned afterwards, so that we can recreate these dishes in our own homes. The phrase "enter as strangers, leave as friends" really came to my mind at the end of it all - Antonella is such a lovely host and teacher, I felt then and still feel such fondness for her and these wonderful memories that we have her to thank for.
Jennie I
Jennie I
2023-04-19
Phenomenal afternoon--highlight of our trip! Phenomenal. CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS ENOUGH!! I would recommend this to anyone that enjoys cooking and beautiful views, or even folks who enjoy lovely people. Antonella was utterly perfect with our family--she worked well with our kids (14 and 11) and gave ALL of us just the right tasks, even with wide ranging skills in the kitchen. We have actually made our menu a couple of times since our March visit to Antonella's Tuscan home. First of all, she was a joy to work with while planning. My husband emailed her and got immediate, quick and useful feedback on how to book our culinary experience. She worked with us on menu items and overall menu and made wonderful recommendations. She also helped us find an amazing olive grove that we could visit (run by two young sisters--yay for female owned companies!) post our cooking class, and that experience was also top notch. We arrived, and she welcomed us with both sparkling and still water, and a lovely handwritten menu on her chalkboard. The ingredients were fresh and ready to go, and we jumped in (not rushed at all) to our prep. We had a leisurely but hands on morning and afternoon, making some of our new favorite dishes. Antonella was patient and instructive and was everything and MORE you'd hope for from a coaching chef. Plus, she's just a lovely human being. Her husband Ricardo was just as lovely. We immediately felt like we were at home in her house and with she and her husband. We could have spent days with her--she was so welcoming and we had such a good time! We made swordfish involtini, fresh cavatelli, and fresh cannolis. As I mentioned, we would do this over and over again. She is the consummate chef but an even better hostess. I'd recommend this experience to anyone! Thanks to Antonella, our kids say that this was the highlight of our 9 day trip.

Local seasonal products

For my cooking classes in Florence and in Chianti region, I always select seasonal ingredients, locally grown from the surrounding Tuscan hills. These choices are key in understanding how to nourish the human body and respect the environment in a wholesome and sustainable way.

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