Cooking in Sicily

What a wonderful tour! Rita, our guide, was fantastic and our Caruso-driver (Giovanni) kept the group in high spirits singing popular Italian songs. In Taormina, the Hotel Continental was perfect: breakfasts were magnificent, as were our meals. Our cooking "maestro", Chef Massimo was organized, knowledgeable, sharing tips as we prepared our bountiful meals, and he ensured everyone had a task. His cooking school was beautiful, his helpers most efficient. We lost one of our participants to a home emergency, so there were only 12 of us. Thanks to Rita, Giovanni and Massimo, our group became one extended family. The days when we weren't cooking allowed us to explore other cities in Sicily, where we enjoyed excellent meals and free time to explore. I'd like to see included, given good weather, an organized trip to a lido. We did this on our own time, but I'm certain several in the group would have enjoyed that. My husband, who has walking pace issues, felt he was never left behind. In this, our guide, not only looked after us, but anticipated our needs and constantly made sure they were met, whether walking, exploring, or at the table. Taormina, as base camp, proved to be perfect: we could visit other towns and not have to be on the bus forever. Well planned!

I cannot say enough good things about this trip. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Rosa went above and beyond to give us the experience of a lifetime. Her knowledge of Sicily, its culture, its history, and its people far exceeded what I expected. She was an amazing tour guide and a great human to be around during our tour. Our chef was equally as good. I learned so much from him and enjoyed being in his kitchen. He greeted us each day with a smile and enthusiasm in his voice. I would do another road scholar trip and I'm looking into it very soon. I think this one would be hard to beat.

Cooking in Sicily was a blast! Life-changing program.

I highly recommend the Cooking in Sicily trip. If you are fortunate enough to have Rosa as your guide and Massimo as your chef, you will have the experience of a lifetime! Fabulous, fabulous trip!

The Road Scholar program “Cooking in Sicily” was a dream come true for me. I always wanted to visit Sicily, I had been wanting to try a Road Scholar program, I love to cook, especially Italian food, and my husband and I had been looking for a “nice” vacation getaway. It checked all the boxes and then some. It was more than we normally spend on our vacations but was worth every penny.

Cooking in Sicily offered an amazing combination of wonderful instruction in culinary arts and insightful tours to sites in a beautiful region of Italy.

This program was a great introduction to the beautiful east coast of Sicily and offered a nice balance between the fabulous cooking lessons and the many field trips between Messina and Syracusa. Taormina was the ideal home base for the trip and offered great opportunities for exploration during free time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this program of "hands on" learning of Sicilian cuisine and the fascinating myths, history and many historical sites found eastern Sicily. I highly recommend this program.

If you enjoy cooking and/or hands-on activities, this is the program for you. Both our guide and the chef were amazing with just the right amount of time for enjoying both the country and the cuisine.

It is with pleasure that I write a review for the program "Cooking in Sicily." The program instructors were experienced, informative and passionate about conveying meaning and substance to individuals participating in the program. Food is one of the main ingredients when learning about a country. Group participants learned about Sicilian culture and history through food. Grazie mille

Highly recommend the Cooking in Sicily trip. Great scenery in beautiful Taormina, warm and welcoming instructors, and memorable meals prepared by the participants. What more can you want?

Incredible experience cooking in Sicily! I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys cooking and visiting other countries

This is an absolutely wonderful tour. The cooking school was awesome. The tours of the surrounding area was breathtaking. I loved the little group of 12 - we received so much personal care during out trip. Our days were packed with adventure, but given enough time to explore locally on our own.

Whether you are an experienced cook or just interested in learning more about cooking, this is the adventure for you.

Cooking in Sicily was a fantastic experience! Chef Massimo presented a wide variety of regional specialties for us to make. Each meal was a delight and made even more special by having had a hand in their creation. The side trips to places in Sicily really enhanced the experience, giving us great insight into the cuisine and people. Taormina is a wonderful town to explore. A truly great Road Scholar program!

Cooking in Sicily is a wonderful adventure. Food, drinks, culture...such an amazing combination. Chef Massimo is a gem. Our tour guide Rita, was professional, knowledgable, and so sweet. Well worth every euro!

Taormina is charming, and our guide, Katarina, was spectacular: knowledgeable and fluent in American idioms. But I had chosen this tour to learn to cook, and I was profoundly disappointed. This was a sous-chef class, and the cooking, except for frying stuffed anchovy fillets and stuffed zucchini flowers, was all done by the chef and/or his 2 assistants, out of sight of tour participants. I learned how to make 3 different types of pasta, but not how to cook them, or how to make the sauces. We cleaned shrimp, and they were whisked away to the kitchen, along with the raviolis we made. For lunch we were served beautifully plated raviolis topped with a shrimp and zucchini sauce, but we didn’t make the sauce or see it made. The chef was charming, but we did not get the recipes until a week after the 3rd class. The recipes included some things we didn’t make, and at least one recipe, the sun dried tomato pesto, called for an ingredient, olive oil, which he had specifically told us not to use. I emailed him about this change, and his response was that safflower oil was better, but olive oil could be used. So the question is why the poorly written (in English) recipe called for an ingredient he didn’t use. Then there was the advertised “visit a local mussel farm” which was just our spectacular guide, Katarina, telling us about how locals were cultivating mussels as we drove around a lake. On the other hand, the baking afternoon was fabulous: we made, from scratch, 3 separate desserts, that were fried or baked in front of us, and we were given the recipes before we tasted our desserts.

What a wonderful town to have us based in. Great guide. Much stair climbing, so be ready -- and in a Sicilian hilltop scenario, there are many uneven 'stairs' each day at almost every activity. The huge block granite 'steps' in the town itself were a challenge with NO handrails. When they classify this as a 3 on the activity scale, they are right! All that said, we visited wonderful places aside from doing our cooking classes with Massimo. Early November was the perfect time to be in Sicily....still warm enough to enjoy.....but the bulk of the tourists were gone so we could really enjoy everything. The local people were very appreciative of our patronage at their stores and told us that on numerous occasions. Taormina is absolutely the most picturesque town. Our hotel Continental was wonderful. The staff are great and the food was lovely - prices very reasonable. Must have Aperol Spritzes! Our group was only 12 people....really perfect!!!

This trip was spectacular. Moishe, the guide, was amazing!!! He made the history in Sicily come alive with all the history and stories of the region. He loves his job and Sicily and he made a great trip for all of us. Mossimo, the chef, taught us so much. He used humor and skill to teach us the art of Sicilian cooking. This trip had a great itinerary, we saw beautiful scenery and historic archeology sites. If you love cooking and history, this is the tour for you!

This is my 4th trip with Road Scholar and I am sorry to say I won't be taking another one with them. The first flight they booked us on was cancelled and this was the start of the nightmare. The airline was blocked by ITA (Italian airline) from issuing a new ticket and asked us to call Road Scholar to issue it because they issued the original ticket. We called their emergency # from the ticket desk. After going through a lengthy recording we finally got someone who didn't seem to know what to do and we were disconnected. Another call made to the emergency # went to a person who said it wasn't her job and transferred me back to the recording. It took the airline 3 1/2 hours to issue a ticket because Road Scholar did not know what to do. After missing the connection in Paris my ticket could not be issued by the airline because ITA again blocked the ticket and it took 4 employees at Delta to issue the ticket. After paying the single supplement the room I was given should not have been used by anyone from Road Scholar, it wasn't remodeled (other rooms used by fellow travelers were) there was an 8 inch step going into the bathroom, no place to charge devices and 5 steps to get to the room in a small alcove. It was 100 steps to get from the hotel to the main tourist area. 3 days before leaving we could not find the first flight coming back on the airline site. I emailed Road Scholar asking that they check the flight. Again no help, I was emailed back, not my job. Upon my return I asked for the single supplement to be returned, it was refused because the hotel did ask if I wanted to change rooms. I didn't because I was too tired to pack and unpack again and some of the other rooms were noisy. All I am getting from Road scholar is it isn't their fault, the only require a hotel have a clean and comfortable room not a safe room. They take no responsibility for an emergency # that can't deal with emergencies. The only redeem thing about this trip was the cooking .

This class was perfect. the venue is enchanted; the cooking class chef/teacher was fabulous; the filed trips informative. themeals we lerned to make and had for lunch wwwere snply Divine! athe exercise of wlaking up and down steps allowed me to not even gain a pound after 4-course meals!

Loved every minute of this Highly recommend

A very good trip, and I disagree with the commenter who said the cooking recipes were basic. I have been making pasta for over 30 years, and much more so in the last 2 years, but I picked up several tips with that and learned many other new recipes.

Cooking in Sicily was all I had hoped for in a travel adventure, and more. Our guide Mara Boscarino was very organized, kind, and knowledgeable, and the cooking classes with Massimo Tomarchio were my best of many wonderful memories.Beautiful scenery and interesting culture.

Cooking in Silly is a real hands on cooking experience in a heavenly setting. I highly recommend it!

Great program. Our Group Leader Katerina was outstanding. Lots of fun and amazing breadth of knowledge

Our group consisted of six seasoned travelers ready to cook. Our chef, Massimo, is talented and was eager to teach us his Nonna's recipes. We had fun cooking and eating the delicious food. Moshe, our guide, was patient and helpful. His commentary about the history of the area was interesting. He made sure that everyone got the most out of the trip. Our driver, Carmello, was excellent. He handled the hairpin turns with ease and was a cautious driver. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

I loved the Cooking in Sicily program! We stayed in one hotel for the entire program and it was located in the beautiful town of Taormina. We had three cooking classes with chef Massimo in Taormina. He was a great teacher and the food we prepared was delicious. We had a fourth class in Siracusa which was also fun, but a bit rushed. In addition, there were several interesting field trips to other towns in the region. We had enough free time to allow for relaxation and exploration on our own.

All together wonderful, and highly recommended! The cooking with Massimo was delightful, fun and delicious. Our guide was so knowledgeable and paced things very well. The accommodations were perfect. This gets a very high rating from me and my traveling companions!

I give the highest marks available for this RS trip. As a non-culinary person, it seemed funny to my friends that I would pick this trip, but it was so much fun. Our group leader, Katerina, might have been the best RS trip leader I've ever had, and I've had some great ones. She was welcoming, had an amazing depth of knowledge about virtually every topic on the program (and some that weren't) and was just an overall wonderful, encouraging, and positive-energy-providing leader. But the star of the trip is Massimo. “Hands on” does not even begin to describe his cooking class experience. He is passionate about Sicilian cuisine, personable, funny, patient, and all those other words you would use to describe a great teacher. No matter if you’re a beginner or an experienced cook, Massimo can teach you something (or in my case, a lot of things!) The food we cooked was fantastic, healthy, and quite frankly, some of the best I’ve ever eaten on a RS trip. His classes are truly the great reward on this Road Scholar trip. As always on a RS trip, I came away with new knowledge and an expanded view of the world. In Sicily, we learned both the historical background and how life in Sicily works today. I’d go back tomorrow!

An amazing experience. A perfect combination of cooking and exploring ancient an modern Sicily. Loved the hotel with its view of Mt Etna. Massimo is a great chef instructor and came back with a new way of combining flavors and textures, as well as with his clear recipes. Moshe ben Simon was a personable and very knowledgeable guide who took care of every detail with enthusiasm and perfection. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be stimulated in Mediterranean cooking in a fascinating environment.

This trip was a true joy! I would recommend arriving a few days early prior to the start of the tour to become acclimated to the jet lag issue from the United States. If you like to eat and drink, this is your tour. We were fed constantly to the point of nausea. I would even suggest that there be fewer group meals. Food and drink is plentiful and cheap in Taormina, and it might have been nice to beg off of another group meal and either opt out on your own or just skip the meal altogether. The cooking “classes” were less a culinary learning experience than an exercise in collectively making a meal for the entire group by stirring or chopping something. It’s okay. The food was wonderful anyways. Our tour guide Rosa was very experienced and informative and assertive when it was necessary, like when the local pharmacy changed the rules of our Covid tests for our return trip, and she absolutely made sure that we would all be tested, which we were. Final thoughts? Make sure that you book business class airline tickets the entire round trip. Second thoughts? If you arrive early, book your passage from Catania airport to Taormina with Taxi Taormina. They were not only reliable, but inexpensive, and no prepayment required. Taormina is like Italian Disneyland. It was a great trip!!

As an experienced cook I found the cooking classes weren't at all challenging. I would recommend that you advertise that it is for novice cooks. I would have liked more free time in the towns we visited rather than so much time on our own in Taormina. Taormina is lovely, but very expensive compared to other cities in Sicily. The hotel was nice, but there wasn't much to do except have a cocktail on the terrace. I did like that the group was so small. Our guide, Moshe, was excellent. And he really was helpful. My luggage was lost by the airline and didn't come until the trip was more than halfway over. My sister and I extended out trip to Palermo on our own. When our accommodations in Palermo fell through, he helped us obtain other housing. He went above and beyond.

Novice or experienced chef you cannot fail to enjoy your time with Chef Massimo - and Taormina and Sicily generally is a wonderful place to visit off season, very few tourists and mostly mild sunny days. I thoroughly reccomentd it.

If you love to cook, eat and learn about great "food" this is the trip for you.

This is the best Road Scholar program I have been on so far. Just an amazing experience!

This was my first Roads Scholar trip. I had high expectations based on comments from friends who had been on previous programs. This program exceeded my expectations and I would highly recommend Roads Scholars' programs to anyone who wants to learn and enjoy the wonders of our world. Considering all I received during the trip, I feel it was a great value and worth the money spent. I will definitely be taking more Roads Scholars trips.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Cooking in Sicily program. The Road Scholar group leader and the cooking school instructor were outstanding. Thoroughly enjoyed the cooking lessons - great fun and very informative. The program was a good mix of cooking lessons, organized tours and free time. Loved Sicily.

This was the best group tour we’ve ever taken. We wish our tour guide Katerina could lead all of them. She was informative and delightful. We loved the places we visited. Massimo our cooking instructor was fun. My husband and I will be cooking his recipes together. What a great time !

This trip was a wonderful way to learn the culture of Sicily through the cuisine. It was a great combination of' hands on' cooking activity combined with touring ancient sites and markets. Since the town of Taormina is on a mountainside there is alot of climbing required to get from the main street to the hotel lobby. Although the walls in the hotel are 'paper thin' it offered a rooftop open lounge with a fantastic view. The hotel is well situated to the main pedestrian area which I found to be safe to walk through even on my own since I was traveling solo. Our guide Katarina was well organized and had a lively personality which made the trip most interesting.

A truly wonderful trip. So much to see and do, it is a true gem and the instructor, Rosa, is truly the very best. There is so much history, beauty, good food, wine, friendly people in this area. The field trips and cooking classes were superb.

This was a wonderful experience that I would recommend without reservation to anyone interested in fascinating, beautiful places, nice people, and delicious food. The best aspect of our tour was without any doubt our group leader, Rosa Rizza. Rosa was an exceptional & knowledgeable speaker and a very warm and supportive friend to all members of our group. Having lived her teen-age years in the States, she really understood her American group members, yet she is through and through Sicilian. Our cooking classes were great. Chef Massimo is an engaging and talented young culinary artist who gave us excellent, fun lessons. What a wonderful introduction to the food of Sicily. The hotel was comfortable. The staff there efficient and pleasant. Our driver, Marchello, amazed us daily as he navigated narrow streets with ease, even backwards at times. It was a great trip!