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Kid's Cookery Courses: La Cucina Caldesi - 'The Italian Cookery School'

by Rhonda Carrier
5 November 2008

If anyone knows what’s what when it comes to child-friendly food, it’s the Italians, and so what better way to introduce foodie kids to the joys of preparing their own nosh than a cookery lesson at one of London’s top Tuscan restaurants?

Cucina Caldesi, based just minutes from Oxford Street in the heart of Marylebone, hosts a range of children’s classes in its small cookery school, aimed at a variety of age groups. We signed up for the ‘street food and pizzas’ course for children 5–12 (non-accompanied; £40 per child), and on a wet August day were happy to find refuge in the warm and welcoming kitchen gleaming with polished saucepans, dotted with shining aubergines and other ripe produce, and rich with the smell of baking. Suddenly we were in the heart of Italy.

Kids were split into pairs, kitted out with transparent aprons, and talked through the basics of dough-making, as the first step on the way to making their own pizza. The explanation given was fairly cursory, but young kids’ concentration (excitement) levels and being what they are, this was perhaps the best option. Most important was getting stuck in, and the kids all seemed to enjoy creating a well or ‘pond’ in their flour into which to add the live yeast, then stirring it up before giving the dough time to rise.

Their next task was to whisk up some double cream with icing sugar for the Italian ice cream, break up some dark-chocolate digestives to stir in, then spoon the result into cupcake cases and top it with a fresh cherry. At this point many of the kids had trouble stopping themselves from scoffing the scrumptious mixture before it was taken away on trays to the freezers. Next, the pizza dough was returned to be rolled out and embellished with the children’s choice of toppings from amongst mozzarella, salami, cherry tomatoes, basil and olives. The pizzas were then loaded into the ovens and the children filled some puff-pastry cases with custard that had been prepared by the somewhat frosty tutor Carola, who – sadly – demonstrated little passion for sharing her knowledge with the class. Luckily, her two assistants were much more hands-on with their young protégés, both in terms of helping them physically and in explaining why they were doing particular things.

[Please note that since the writing of this feature, Cucina Caldesi has changed its course teachers, with kids' cookery lessons now taught by the firm Italian Mamas, who all have kids themselves, by the restaurant's Sicilian executive chef Gregorio Piazza (teens courses), and the Italian Sunday family lunch - mentioned below - presided over by the fabulous Ursula Ferrigno and more focused on families spending time cooking and eating together.]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the tables were laid and aprons whisked away so that the children could sit down to sample their pizza and ice cream. More time should have been allocated to this, as it was a bit of a rushed affair, with anxious mums peering through the windows and looking at their watches as time overran. But the kids all seemed proud to have prepared their own lunch. My boys and I headed off, bellies full, to Hyde Park, where, growing peckish again, we ate our boxed-up custard tarts as we took shelter from the rain again. The sweet taste of these sticky litte yellow tortes was like a blast of Tuscan sunlight in a grey London day.

Very popular (book well ahead) are the Italian Sunday Family Lunches, which include a trip to the wonderful Marylebone Farmers Market. Parents have the option both of joining in with the cooking (and eating) and coming along to the market. There are also special Teens courses, pasta-making for 9–15-year-olds, dessert-making for 5–12-year-olds and more. The courses are actually run by a firm called Cookie Crumbles, who also operate at 'Maggie & Rose', a ‘private members’ club for families’ in Kensington, and Eddie Catz activity centres in Putney (for pre-schoolers: ages 18 months–5 years) and Wimbledon (ages 3–5).

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Further Information about Cucina Caldesi:

Rhonda and family attended the 'Street food and pizzas' class.

'La Cucina Caldesi the Italian cookery school' is located in Marylebone Lane, nearest tube Bond Street.

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Other Kids’ Cookery Courses:

Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons: Raymond Blanc’s famous Oxfordshire hotel and two-Michelin-starred restaurant (both wclcoming children) contains a cookery school hosting one-day courses for ‘junior master-chefs’ aged 8–11 or 12–16, culminating in a tea party in the garden with parents. New for 2008 are adult and child courses, some with Blanc himself.

Splat Cooking: Workshops and courses for various age ranges in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Hertfordshire. Themes run from summer picnics to edible Christmas tree decorations, and from Chinese to Tex Mex.

Augill Castle: A ‘family home which welcomes guests’, this quirky Cumbrian ‘child-friendly castle’ offers school-holiday cookery courses for ages 7-14, taking in everything from growing veg and raising pigs (including visits to local farms) to cooking and eating them. Half-days for younger sibings are sometimes possible.

Nick Nairn Cook School: Foodies & Future Chefs classes for kids aged 12–16, each of whom must be accompanied by a paying adult, at this cookery school set up by the celebrity chef in the scenic Scottish Trossachs less than an hour from Edinburgh. The website lists nearby accommodation options.

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Read Dea Birkett's Eating with Kids: Cookery class in Venice

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Other feature articles by Rhonda

• Home or Away? (23 June 2009)
• Sun Protection Awareness The Facts (15 May 2009)
• Post baby (14 May 2009)
• Breaks with baby (14 May 2009)
• Babymoons (14 May 2009)
• Eureka Museum (7 April 2009)
• Chill Factore, Manchester (22 March 2009)
• The Clos Lucé, Loire Valley (19 March 2009)
• Newby Hall, Yorkshire (19 March 2009)
• Latitude Festival (19 March 2009)
• The National Space Centre (Leicester) and Spaceport (Wirral) (19 March 2009)
• Disneyland with Young Kids (19 March 2009)
• With or Without the Family (13 March 2009)
• The Year of the Comic Strip, Brussels (6 March 2009)
• Belt tightening family holiday ideas (2 March 2009)
• Darwin 200th Birthday Celebrations (19 February 2009)
• To ski or not to ski (10 February 2009)
• With or Without the Kids? (4 February 2009)
• Top Family things to do this Christmas (2 December 2008)
• Winter Wonderlands (28 October 2008)
• Motor-homing (3 October 2008)
• On a family sized budget (17 September 2008)
• Liverpool City of Culture 2008 (28 July 2008)
• Pitching Up (13 June 2008)
• My favourite family holiday (24 May 2008)
• The 5 best summer music festivals (23 May 2008)
• Forest Parks, Kids Bookshops and Football (11 February 2008)
• Christmas Family Short Breaks (8 November 2007)