eBiking/Vineyard Visits/Cooking/Wine/ Feasts

eBike to a new vineyard each day. Cook a feast each evening to go with each day’s wines.

Take this class if you’d like:

* Spend your mornings e-bicycling through Italian wine country. *See FAQ below for more info
* Visit a different winery each day
* Learn first-hand from the actual wine makers
* Double and triple your Italian wine knowledge
* Enjoy full, wine-based staff-prepared lunches back at the school in Lecce
* Spend your afternoons and evenings making pasta, cooking and feasting
* Learn to master the local pasta, Mediterranean fish, legumes and vegetables
* Learn to see wine as a product of a place rather than as a product of a grape
* Spend the week with an Italian-trained sommelier of wine (AIS) and sommelier dell’extra vergine (FIS)

You’ll:

  • Spend your mornings bicycling wine and olive country, the surest way of understanding the local food and wine
  • Master 6 shapes of fresh pasta production, using only a butterknife, a rolling pin and the (clean) spoke from an old umbrella
  • Critically taste (and then drink freely) 40 different local wines, all sourced with 25 kilometers of the school, from grapes that have been in Southern Puglia for at least 200 years
  • Bicycle daily to local wineries, with a tour and guided tasting by the owner
  • Bicycle to an olive grove and finally grasp extra virgin olive oil: Production, history, ascertain quality and learn to critically taste. This is often the biggest surprise of the course, how different the artisanal reality is from supermarket expectations
  • Enjoy these chalkboard talks over wine: Who eats what where in Italy? The history of Italian wine. Italy’s contribution to world coffee culture. The materials of kitchen gear. 1493: Southern vegetables. Olive oil fraud and what to do about it.
  • Begin to understand Italy, Italian food and Italian wine as an expression of the territory, history, geography and climate
  • Build Italian daily lifestyle habits, living for a week in one of Italy’s prettiest cities. By walking the same streets with a slower pace, you’ll get to know locals, the vendors, patrons in coffee and wine bars. You’ll also pick up enough Italian to play a part in the local community
  • Prepare 25 local Mediterranean side-dishes, each dripping with high-quality extra virgin olive oil
  • Revel in 10 healthy, wine-soaked feasts. Reconfirm your faith in humanity with time spent emotionally and intellectually connecting with people from all over the world, united through a love of Italian food and wine
  • Learn about the history of amari (Italy’s after dinner drinks). You’ll finish many if not most meals with a visit to what must be Southern Italy’s largest private amaro bar
  • Gain access to all the recipes, tips and tricks and all of our password protected content, not just for the class but all of our classes. In that email we also include all the other students’ emails so that you can keep in touch and meet up all around the world (when you do send an email with pictures). We’ll also include the password to our playlists (everyone asks for them)
  • NB:- While you’ll be eating, drinking and working with local ingredients, this course is designed- once home- to give you skills to apply them to your local produce. You’ll naturally widen your gaze to the great ingredients already available in your community, rather than focusing on importing them from other parts of the world.
Bici/Cucina/Vino Week-long Cooking Course in Lecce

Taken from TripAdvisor

  • ‘We were incredibly impressed with Silvestro’s knowledge of authentic Italian cuisine, and how to organize novices like us into a well-oiled (literally) Cooking Machine! It was a beautiful, historic setting…very relaxing, scenic and peaceful’.
  • ‘The passion and knowledge of the owner was inspiring, making the experience not just educational but also deeply enjoyable. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to dive into the culinary delights southern Italy —it’s a true celebration of Italian food and culture’!
  • ‘The hands-on guidance was exceptional, especially in making a healthy pasta from scratch, which highlighted the beauty of simple, high-quality ingredients’.

Q: I really, really love bicycling up mountains until my bile production plummets, I hear the voices of dead relatives and I need hourly blood transfusions, you know, just like pro cyclists do on TV. Can we do that?
A: No. This course is for ‘Sunday’ cyclists. Each morning we bicycle out to a different local vineyard, learn about a different aspect of wine, bicycle back, take showers and have a staff-prepared lunch. We take a break and then spend the afternoons and evenings in the kitchen, making pasta, learning about fish and vegetables and learn more about the aspects of food and wine. This is not the course for flagellants in spandex.

Q: How many changes of bicycle clothing do I need to bring?
A: One. You’ll bring your worn bicycling clothing to lunch with you each day and we’ll have it washed, dried and folded for you to take back to your Bed and Breakfast for the next day’s riding.

Q: Do I need to bring my own helmet?
A: You can elect to bring one from home or we can loan you one.

Q: Can I bring my own cleats and pedals?
A: No. Bring running or cross training shoes. We don’t want you clicking and sliding on (often wet) ceramic floors at the wineries. Plus, it’s not that kind of cycling (see first answer).

Q: How far do we actually bicycle daily?
A: Daily distances start at about 18 kilometres and go up to about 62 on the last day. The terrain is mostly flat and we all are on eBikes.

Who is the teacher?
A: Our owner has been teaching the food, wine and olive oil of the Puglia to students from 59 countries for the last 22 years. He is a sommelier of wine (AIS) and a sommelier of extra virgin olive oil (FIS) and has been a professional wine writer for magazines since 2010. He also lectures on behalf of the region of Puglia and annually teaches university classes here in Italy

Q: How much do we cook and learn about wine?
A: We make fresh pasta, cook together, have culinary lessons, wine lessons, taste wine and feast together in the evenings. Most lunches are prepared by the staff with the exception of the last day, when we have lunch on the Ionian coast. Bicycling is an extension of understanding the local food and wine, rather than a break from it.

Q: Are they eBikes?
A: Yes. You can elect not to turn on yours but our fleet is 100% eBikes. This is especially valuable for equalizing couples and for amalgamating the group.

Q: But I want to bicycle further each day. Can I?
A: Yes, no problem. We rent the bicycles for the week so you can come by the school early, pick up your bicycle and go for an early morning ride before we depart as a group.

Q: How much is the bicycle supplement and what does it cover?
A: 345 Euro. This covers the bicycle guide, a ‘sag wag’, water and sports drinks and the rental of a high-quality eBike. You can pay supplement in cash on Monday.

Q: Do I need traveller’s insurance?
A: Yes, with pandemics, invasions and transportation strikes, today traveller’s insurance is money well-spent. Make sure it covers medical care, especially if you’re not a European citizen. Some credit cards offer this automatically, if you have that card hooked up to your Paypal account.

Q: What prerequisite kitchen skills do I need?
A: Zero. This is regional cooking. We all start at zero when learning a new cuisine but our school emphasis the ‘why’, as most of the time in Italy the ‘how’, is surprising straight forward. While you’ll certainly pick up some skills, tips and tricks that will make you more competent in cooking any and all cuisines when home, our classes are far more anthropological/sociological, but held in the kitchen and dinning room.

Q: I don’t drink a lot. Or I don’t drink at all. Is that a problem?
A: No. If you are able to view wine as liquid food and food as solid wine, you’ll see that the factors that make the food the way it is are the same ones that make the wine the way it is. If you get bored talking and learning about wine, this is not the course for you. How much you actually drink is up to you. We taste versus drink when visiting wineries but it flows freely once back at the school.

Q: Where do I sleep for the week?
A: We have suggestions. Once you book we’ll give you access to Student Services which has all the arrival/departure/accommodation information. We give this out only after booking to make sure we actually have space for you before you book anything further.

Logistic at a Glance:

When: From Monday morning to late Friday night, held several times throughout the year. Check our Cooking Class Calendar for dates.

Where is the class held: In the historic centre of Lecce, in Puglia. In our owner’s private home. Local vineyards.

Daily schedule: from 10:00 to 15:00 and then from 18:00 until 23:00 or later

Taught in: English

Wine: At least 40 different wines, all sourced from historically-present (at last 200 years), autochthonous grapes, grown, produced and bottled within 25 kilometers from the school. All poured (generously) and explained by an Italian-trained sommelier

Cost: 2295 Euro

Bicycle Supplement: 345 Euro. Covers E-bike, sag wag and bicycle guide

What’s not included: Optional tips for staff at end of the week

Where do we meet first day: Under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo. Lecce’s main square. See map below.

Twice-daily meeting point: Under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo (Lecce’s main piazza—see map below). We meet under the column each time (DO NOT COME DIRECTLY TO THE SCHOOL) to facilitate many local market visits

The Awaiting Table Cooking School Map

Walking: About 4,000 daily steps. And about two hours standing in the kitchen

Diet restrictions: We’re happy to serve you gluten-free pasta but we won’t be able to make it. If you can’t touch regular flour and/or pasta, this is not the class for you

eBiking/Vineyard Visits/Cooking/Wine/ Feasts

eBike to a new vineyard each day. Cook a feast each evening to go with each day’s wines.

Take this class if you’d like:

* Spend your mornings e-bicycling through Italian wine country. *See FAQ below for more info
* Visit a different winery each day
* Learn first-hand from the actual wine makers
* Double and triple your Italian wine knowledge
* Enjoy full, wine-based staff-prepared lunches back at the school in Lecce
* Spend your afternoons and evenings making pasta, cooking and feasting
* Learn to master the local pasta, Mediterranean fish, legumes and vegetables
* Learn to see wine as a product of a place rather than as a product of a grape
* Spend the week with an Italian-trained sommelier of wine (AIS) and sommelier dell’extra vergine (FIS)

You’ll:

  • Spend your mornings bicycling wine and olive country, the surest way of understanding the local food and wine
  • Master 6 shapes of fresh pasta production, using only a butterknife, a rolling pin and the (clean) spoke from an old umbrella
  • Critically taste (and then drink freely) 40 different local wines, all sourced with 25 kilometers of the school, from grapes that have been in Southern Puglia for at least 200 years
  • Bicycle daily to local wineries, with a tour and guided tasting by the owner
  • Bicycle to an olive grove and finally grasp extra virgin olive oil: Production, history, ascertain quality and learn to critically taste. This is often the biggest surprise of the course, how different the artisanal reality is from supermarket expectations
  • Enjoy these chalkboard talks over wine: Who eats what where in Italy? The history of Italian wine. Italy’s contribution to world coffee culture. The materials of kitchen gear. 1493: Southern vegetables. Olive oil fraud and what to do about it.
  • Begin to understand Italy, Italian food and Italian wine as an expression of the territory, history, geography and climate
  • Build Italian daily lifestyle habits, living for a week in one of Italy’s prettiest cities. By walking the same streets with a slower pace, you’ll get to know locals, the vendors, patrons in coffee and wine bars. You’ll also pick up enough Italian to play a part in the local community
  • Prepare 25 local Mediterranean side-dishes, each dripping with high-quality extra virgin olive oil
  • Revel in 10 healthy, wine-soaked feasts. Reconfirm your faith in humanity with time spent emotionally and intellectually connecting with people from all over the world, united through a love of Italian food and wine
  • Learn about the history of amari (Italy’s after dinner drinks). You’ll finish many if not most meals with a visit to what must be Southern Italy’s largest private amaro bar
  • Gain access to all the recipes, tips and tricks and all of our password protected content, not just for the class but all of our classes. In that email we also include all the other students’ emails so that you can keep in touch and meet up all around the world (when you do send an email with pictures). We’ll also include the password to our playlists (everyone asks for them)
  • NB:- While you’ll be eating, drinking and working with local ingredients, this course is designed- once home- to give you skills to apply them to your local produce. You’ll naturally widen your gaze to the great ingredients already available in your community, rather than focusing on importing them from other parts of the world.
Bici/Cucina/Vino Week-long Cooking Course in Lecce

Logistic at a Glance:

When: From Monday morning to late Friday night, held several times throughout the year. Check our Cooking Class Calendar for dates.

Where is the class held: In the historic centre of Lecce, in Puglia. In our owner’s private home. Local vineyards.

Daily schedule: from 10:00 to 15:00 and then from 18:00 until 23:00 or later

Taught in: English

Wine: At least 40 different wines, all sourced from historically-present (at last 200 years), autochthonous grapes, grown, produced and bottled within 25 kilometers from the school. All poured (generously) and explained by an Italian-trained sommelier

Cost: 2295 Euro

Bicycle Supplement: 345 Euro. Covers E-bike, sag wag and bicycle guide

What’s not included: Optional tips for staff at end of the week

Where do we meet first day: Under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo. Lecce’s main square. See map below.

Twice-daily meeting point: Under the column in Piazza Sant Oronzo (Lecce’s main piazza—see map below). We meet under the column each time (DO NOT COME DIRECTLY TO THE SCHOOL) to facilitate many local market visits

The Awaiting Table Cooking School Map

Walking: About 4,000 daily steps. And about two hours standing in the kitchen

Diet restrictions: We’re happy to serve you gluten-free pasta but we won’t be able to make it. If you can’t touch regular flour and/or pasta, this is not the class for you

Taken from TripAdvisor

  • ‘We were incredibly impressed with Silvestro’s knowledge of authentic Italian cuisine, and how to organize novices like us into a well-oiled (literally) Cooking Machine! It was a beautiful, historic setting…very relaxing, scenic and peaceful’.
  • ‘The passion and knowledge of the owner was inspiring, making the experience not just educational but also deeply enjoyable. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to dive into the culinary delights southern Italy —it’s a true celebration of Italian food and culture’!
  • ‘The hands-on guidance was exceptional, especially in making a healthy pasta from scratch, which highlighted the beauty of simple, high-quality ingredients’.

Q: I really, really love bicycling up mountains until my bile production plummets, I hear the voices of dead relatives and I need hourly blood transfusions, you know, just like pro cyclists do on TV. Can we do that?
A: No. This course is for ‘Sunday’ cyclists. Each morning we bicycle out to a different local vineyard, learn about a different aspect of wine, bicycle back, take showers and have a staff-prepared lunch. We take a break and then spend the afternoons and evenings in the kitchen, making pasta, learning about fish and vegetables and learn more about the aspects of food and wine. This is not the course for flagellants in spandex.

Q: How many changes of bicycle clothing do I need to bring?
A: One. You’ll bring your worn bicycling clothing to lunch with you each day and we’ll have it washed, dried and folded for you to take back to your Bed and Breakfast for the next day’s riding.

Q: Do I need to bring my own helmet?
A: You can elect to bring one from home or we can loan you one.

Q: Can I bring my own cleats and pedals?
A: No. Bring running or cross training shoes. We don’t want you clicking and sliding on (often wet) ceramic floors at the wineries. Plus, it’s not that kind of cycling (see first answer).

Q: How far do we actually bicycle daily?
A: Daily distances start at about 18 kilometres and go up to about 62 on the last day. The terrain is mostly flat and we all are on eBikes.

Who is the teacher?
A: Our owner has been teaching the food, wine and olive oil of the Puglia to students from 59 countries for the last 22 years. He is a sommelier of wine (AIS) and a sommelier of extra virgin olive oil (FIS) and has been a professional wine writer for magazines since 2010. He also lectures on behalf of the region of Puglia and annually teaches university classes here in Italy

Q: How much do we cook and learn about wine?
A: We make fresh pasta, cook together, have culinary lessons, wine lessons, taste wine and feast together in the evenings. Most lunches are prepared by the staff with the exception of the last day, when we have lunch on the Ionian coast. Bicycling is an extension of understanding the local food and wine, rather than a break from it.

Q: Are they eBikes?
A: Yes. You can elect not to turn on yours but our fleet is 100% eBikes. This is especially valuable for equalizing couples and for amalgamating the group.

Q: But I want to bicycle further each day. Can I?
A: Yes, no problem. We rent the bicycles for the week so you can come by the school early, pick up your bicycle and go for an early morning ride before we depart as a group.

Q: How much is the bicycle supplement and what does it cover?
A: 345 Euro. This covers the bicycle guide, a ‘sag wag’, water and sports drinks and the rental of a high-quality eBike. You can pay supplement in cash on Monday.

Q: Do I need traveller’s insurance?
A: Yes, with pandemics, invasions and transportation strikes, today traveller’s insurance is money well-spent. Make sure it covers medical care, especially if you’re not a European citizen. Some credit cards offer this automatically, if you have that card hooked up to your Paypal account.

Q: What prerequisite kitchen skills do I need?
A: Zero. This is regional cooking. We all start at zero when learning a new cuisine but our school emphasis the ‘why’, as most of the time in Italy the ‘how’, is surprising straight forward. While you’ll certainly pick up some skills, tips and tricks that will make you more competent in cooking any and all cuisines when home, our classes are far more anthropological/sociological, but held in the kitchen and dinning room.

Q: I don’t drink a lot. Or I don’t drink at all. Is that a problem?
A: No. If you are able to view wine as liquid food and food as solid wine, you’ll see that the factors that make the food the way it is are the same ones that make the wine the way it is. If you get bored talking and learning about wine, this is not the course for you. How much you actually drink is up to you. We taste versus drink when visiting wineries but it flows freely once back at the school.

Q: Where do I sleep for the week?
A: We have suggestions. Once you book we’ll give you access to Student Services which has all the arrival/departure/accommodation information. We give this out only after booking to make sure we actually have space for you before you book anything further.