Best Cooking Classes In Kyoto

Kyoto is a great place to take a Japanese cooking class: It’s filled with traditional markets, including the famous Nishiki Market, and there are several good cooking schools. Here are our three favorite cooking classes in Kyoto.

[Roll sushi cooking class in Japan — image © aleks333 / Shutterstock.com]

Donburi Cooking Course and Nishiki Market Private Tour

This is our favorite cooking class in Kyoto for three reasons: It includes a tour of Nishiki Market (Kyoto’s best traditional food market), you’ll learn how to make a dish that you can easily make back home, and it’s fully private.

[Nishiki Market — image © marcobrivio.photography / Shutterstock.com]

Before the class the guide will escort you to Nishiki Market, where you can buy the ingredients for the class. You’ll then return to the cooking school and you’ll learn how to prepare a donburi, which is a rice bowl topped by ingredients like meat, fish, eggs or vegetables.

This is Japanese comfort food and it’s something you can make back home with ingredients available at most supermarkets. It’s a dish that you can tailor to almost anyone: vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free people and carnivores. You can book this class via Klook.

Kyoto Pub Food Making Workshop

You’ve probably heard of an izakaya. These are casual Japanese restaurants that serve a variety of traditional dishes to accompany beer and sake. In this class, you’ll learn several classic izakaya dishes including fried chicken with salted plums and shiso leaf, and pumpkin soup with white miso.

[Japanese izakaya — image © fornStudio / Shutterstock.com]

The dishes can be adapted for vegetarians and the teacher can tell you options to replace ingredients that you cannot find back home. For those looking to learn several dishes and Japanese cooking techniques at one go, this is a great group class. This class is also bookable via Klook.

Kyoto Bento Making Workshop

We like this group class because you’ll learn a wide variety of Japanese dishes, including sushi, tempura and teriyaki, and you’ll learn how to put them together into an attractive set meal, or bento.

[Japanese bento — image © ADISAK INTACHAI / Shutterstock.com]

Because it’s a group class, it’s a great way to meet other travelers, and the price is much lower than a private lesson. Most of the dishes in this class can serve as stand-alone meals and you can prepare them with ingredients available at good supermarkets back home. Your friends and family will appreciate the results of your cooking studies in Kyoto! You can book this class via Klook.

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