43.78° N · 11.25° E · Florence
On the first floor of the San Lorenzo covered market, a cooking school gives hands-on classes on fixed dates: fresh pasta, pizza, meat, fish or pastry, from two to four hours, with a tasting and a glass of wine. From €85 per person.
Part of FlorenceClassic film locations
Who offers it
Independent companies: you book with them, on their terms. Prices are as they publish them and may change.
Step by step
Check the month's calendar on the website and buy your place; few are left at weekends.
Go up to the first floor of the Mercato Centrale and look for the school's information point.
You cook in a group with the chef, step by step, with the recipe in writing.
You sit down to try what you have made, with a glass of wine.
A morning or an afternoon with your hands in the dough, in the heart of the San Lorenzo market. The Mercato Centrale cooking school publishes each month a calendar of classes with date and time, and sells the places one by one on its website. You choose the theme, arrive at the first floor of the market, cook with a chef and eat what you have made with a glass of wine.
The Scuola di Cucina Lorenzo de' Medici is the school of the Mercato Centrale, the iron-and-glass covered market of the San Lorenzo district, five minutes from Santa Maria Novella station. It is not a workshop designed only for tourists: the calendar mixes classes in fresh and filled pasta, pizza, bread, pastry, meat, fish, wine pairing and regional cooking, and changes with the seasons, with Christmas, Carnival or Easter courses.
It suits those who want to take away more than a photo of Florence: a couple looking for a different plan, a group of friends or a family with teenagers, because the minimum age is 14. For minors you need to ask the school.
In the winter 2026–2027 calendar, a two-hour pizza class costs €85. The fresh pasta one, of two and a half hours, €100: in the one on 28 February 2027 you make green ravioli of spinach and ricotta with tomato sauce and red parmesan cappellacci. The meat and fish classes run from €95 to €140, the pastry and bread ones cost €120 and the regional cooking ones, of four hours, €165. Classes for couples cost €180 per couple.
All include the lesson, the ingredients, the tasting of what you cook with a glass of wine and water, the apron, the equipment, the recipe, a diploma and insurance. It is not a full meal: it is the tasting of the dishes from the class.
The school's website is in Italian and English, but the course sheets do not say in which language each class is given. If you do not speak Italian, ask before you buy, by phone or at the market's information point.
Morning classes usually start between 10:00 and 11:00 and finish at lunchtime; afternoon ones start between 14:30 and 19:00. After a morning class, leave a nearby museum or the walk to the Duomo, ten minutes away, for the afternoon. If the class is in the afternoon, in the morning you have San Lorenzo and the Accademia next door.
Map
What you have around the starting point.
More to do
Itineraries
Tips
Each class has a date and few places.
The sheets do not say.
You taste what you cook, but it is not a full menu.
Questions
From €85 per person for a two-hour pizza class; the fresh pasta one, €100.
Ingredients, tasting with a glass of wine and water, apron, recipe, diploma and insurance.
From age 14. For minors, ask the school.
The website does not say. Ask before booking.
On the first floor of the Mercato Centrale, in the San Lorenzo district, next to the station.
Geocaliahttps://www.geocalia.com/en/italy/tuscany/florence/things-to-do/mercato-centrale-cooking-class
