AAMillionaire

Hello all...

I'll be in Rome in February and want to do a cooking class. I contacted Katie Parla and she recommended Daniela's cooking school. I prefer this however a friend wants to do a class she found on TripAdvisor.

I find it a bit odd that the TripAdvisor tour doesn't have a website of it's own. Anyone with experience about this?

Thanks.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...partner=Viator

sophiesophie

I have used Viator for a few things when I was in Italy - cooking class in Florence and horseback riding in Siena - and I was very happy with using them.

The horseback riding stable was very kind to allow me to change my ride to the following day as it was raining on my scheduled day. Cooking school reservations may not be as amenable as they are usually booked.

My friend did a cooking class outside of Florence (I think) and she loved it. I realize you are in Rome though. I will see if I can find the place she did, if you are interested. She posted a picture of a beautiful view of the dining room that is perched on the side of a mountain.

wrp96

A friend just did an amazing cooking class in Rome. It's an actual cooking school with stations for up to 16 people I believe, but the gentleman that runs it did the class just for her. I'll see if I can get a link for booking it from her. http://www.onedaychef.it/en/

bo1953

viator.com is the website.

Have a good trip, otherwise.

PWMTrav

Viator is large and pretty well known. Reputable from my knowledge - I've sent folks there, but haven't used them personally.

That said, Katie Parla knows her stuff. If she recommended someone specifically, I'd opt for that.

Perche

I'd stay far away from Viator. They are a third party booker. They are not a cooking school, they don't have any relationship with a cooking school. It's like Expedia. Saying I went to a Viator cooking school and liked it is like saying, "I stayed at an Expedia hotel and liked it."

Its a matter of which hotel, not that you used Expedia as a third party to book it. You can stay at the Hotel Russie in Rome through Expedia, or at a youth hostel near the train station through Expedia. Each hotel gets to write their own advertisement. Expedia/Viator, and similar agencies just book it for you on their website. They have nothing to do with cooking schools. They are a third party website that charges for places that want to be put on their website. They don't have anything to do with cooking schools. They can't help you decide between the good and bad. Using TripAdvisor makes as little sense. How would a tourist going to their first and only Roman cooking class know which one is better than another?

Perche

PS: Daniela, the person Katie Parla mentioned, is one of the most famous and qualified persons holding cooking classes in Rome. She trained in some of the most prestigious schools for chefs in Europe, now runs catering and teaches cooking from her home in one of the most spectacular historic neighborhoods in Rome. The question is, whether you'd be able to get her. People with her reputation are very hard to get. For example, just try to book a tour with Katie Parla, and you'll see what I mean. It's very hard to find people like her or Daniela to be free. You should reach out now, so that if she's not available, you can reserve other notable classes, before they're all gone. You're not going gonne able to tell the good from the bad from TrioAdvisor.

Remember, with all of the spectacular restaurants in Rome, TripAdvisor currently list a place called, "Bread-In" as the #1 restaurant in all of Rome. It's a panino (sandwich) store. You are always going to the bottom with TA, because you are asking for the opinion of people who have no idea about what they are writing about. The second best out of all 6,000 plus restaurants in all of Rome, according to TA is "Pane e Salame," a take out sandwich place. I don't understand why people would use it for advice. If you cannot get Daniele, there are plenty of other good cooking class options, but they won't be found on TA.

wrp96

Perche, you remind me of something I heard on a recent cruise from Rome "I'm so glad to be on the ship. The only decent meals we had in Rome were at the Hard Rock Cafe and MacDonald's."

JBD

+1 on perche's comments

OT, but in keeping with not holding TripAdvisor in high esteem, I just checked to see what was their current number 1 hotel in Rome, out of 1,291 - and it's this:
http://www.appiaanticaresort.com/

Perche

Isn't it a shame how much TripAdvisor takes advantage of people. The hotel they list as the best in all of Rome is a two hour walk to the historic center. In this day and age, when it is so easy to contact well know guides in Italy, who actually live there and do this for a living, it is curious to me why people rely on the advice of a tourist website.

The OP did a smart thing by emailing Katie Parla for a recommendation, and I'm sure Katie did not charge for her advice to go with Daniela. Now, I hope Daniela is available to the OP.

AAMillionaire

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions.

I am not a fan of TripAdvisor or Yelp. I find them useless and misleading.

Yes, Daniela is available at the moment. It's a matter of convincing my friend.

AAMillionaire

We're going with Daniela! Glad my friend agreed.

gardengirl

We did Daniela's class when she was part of Context Travel. Excellent and I recommend it to everyone I know who is going to Rome.

Perche

I didn't know she had been with Context.

Think of Viator as being the Craigslist of things to do. It's just a bulletin board. If a person thinks they can do a tour, a cooking class, or whatever, they pay Viator a fee to be listed on their website. That's it. There is almost no vetting. It's just a bulletin board. If someone then uses the Viator website to book that person, Viator also takes a cut of that.

If you go on Craigslist to buy a used car and it turns out to be a lemon you cannot call Craigslist and complain, "I just bought a car using your website, and as soon as I drove it the engine failed." If you can actually communicate with someone they will say, "Why are you calling us? Speak to the person you bought the car from! We just connect sellers with buyers."

They are just a bulletin board, the opposite of something like Context Travel. I am saying this with zero conflict of interest, personally, financially, or in any way whatsoever.

JBD

She still appears to work with Context, concurrently with her own business (there are a few I know of that work privately as well as with Context).

Here's a quote from the description of this Context Tour: La Cena, An Italian Dinner

And in this other Context tour she's not mentioned by name, but her Aventine kitchen is. The quote below comes from this tour: Italian Cooking

I looked up her own website out of curiousity, here it is for any future readers of this thread:
http://www.danielascookingschool.com/daniela-del-balzo/