Learn classic Italian dishes as real Italians make them, but occasionally given a twist. Home-made pasta, risottos, gnocchi, crespelle, fish, meat, vegetarian.... tell us where your interests lie.
Courses concentrate on the cuisine of the Veneto: its antipasti, pastas, risottos, gnocchi, crespelle, sorbets, main courses and desserts. Dishes vary across the region, from the seafood specialities of Venice, to the heartier food of the foothills of the Dolomites. Before you come out, and again at the start of your stay with us, we'll discuss the menus with you to make sure we cover your particular interests.
Italian cuisine is deservedly famed for its starters. Learn how to make homemade pasta, gnocchi, and crespelle (a savoury form of crepes), using various sauces and fillings. Learn the easy way to make risottos. Ingredients used are seasonal, so you might prepare an asparagus lasagne, a pumpkin risotto, or crespelle stuffed with wild mushrooms, depending on when you come. For the particularly adventurous, you can make a risotto or pasta with cuttlefish and its black ink! If you have anything you particularly want to have a go at, or avoid, then please just tell us.
For main courses, you can bake fish, make meat balls in a lemony sauce (comfort food as Mamma makes it), debone and stuff birds.... make ossobuco, saltinbocca alla romana, hearty winter stews, roast duck.... all depending on the season and your tastes. We'll also teach you many tasty vegetable dishes using seasonal produce. Italian cuisine is wonderful for vegetarians.
For desserts you can make the Italian classics such as panna cotta, various crostate (flans), homemade gelato and tiramisu. Antonella also throws in twists to the classic dishes - how about a lemon tiramisu? Strudels, both savoury and sweet, are also made in the Veneto, a region once under the Austrians. Make the Venetian 'sgruppino', based on lemon ice-cream, Prosecco and vodka, to clean the palate after fish.
Local wines are carefully chosen to accompany each dish. No meal is complete without Antonella's famous homemade limoncello, which will make you tingle all over in delight. Hardier souls can enjoy the grappas she infuses with various berries, seeds and roots. You'll sleep well at the end of a fun and instructive day!
