Chef Eric's Culinary Classroom

I have taken several cooking classes and have thoroughly enjoyed each one. Sushi was fresh and fantastic. I made the Thanksgiving dinner and loved all the food items. I have brought different friends and they all have enjoyed the cooking experience. What a fun date idea. Pros: Friendly environment, excellent instruction and yummy food Cons: Parking more

My mom and I were excited to enroll in Chef Eric's Cake Decorating Class. We paid our $100 each, arrived at 9am on a Saturday, and joined the 7 other students in our class. According to Chef Eric's class description, ""Each student learns to Write Script and make Leaves, Simple Flowers, Bows and Shells."" Nothing could be further from the truth. After a quick demo from Chef Eric we were basically told how to fill our pastry bags with fake frosting and then we were told to practice making flowers for 20 minutes. After that we were assigned partners, given a recipe for buttercream frosting, and were told to practice making frosting. It says nothing in Chef's Eric's class description about making frosting and yet, we spent 30 minutes mixingbutter and sugar, and after we were done we stood around for 30 minutes while Chef Eric prepared his classroom for his afternoon class. \r \r Finally, he showed us how to frost a cake and then told us to frost and decorate our cakes. Since we had to work in groups of two it was very difficult to share the tiny, flat cakes that Chef Eric had prepared for us to decorate. Why did we each pay $100 to SHARE a cake? \r \r Honestly, this was the biggest waste of time and money. Chef Eric is disorganized and inattentive. The afternoon after our class I sent him an e-mail stating how disappointed I was and I requested a partial credit. This was his response - \r \r ""It is apparent from your email that the two of you are more advanced in the field of cake decorating. If you are looking for a strict decorating class, I suggest you search out a ?Wilton? cake decorating class. In that environment, I believe you will do nothing but decorate. In closing, I only issue refunds when I have to cancel a class due to lack of enrollment.""\r \r So there you have it - Chef Eric himself says that if you want to learn to decorate a cake instead of how to use a stand mixer, please find a class by Wilton instead of paying $100 at his Culinary Classroom. Pros: His staff was friendly... Cons: Everything else more

My husband and I took one of the Couples class and had a wonderful experience. Our whole group had a great time. We were prepared for an evening at a cooking party rather than a ""class"" (we asked about the format for the evening when we registered). We all had the opportunity to make something (with fresh ingredients), our questions were answered and we had fun. Chef Eric made a point of coming over and checking to make sure we were comfortable following the recipes and he did demonstrations to make sure were at ease with what we were doing. When you're out for a fun evening as a couple, you're out for just that, a fun evening and that's what we had. We even made a few new friends!\r \r I've taken several classes at a lot of different places and stand by Chef Eric's Culinary Classroom as my #1 pick.\r \r The Culinary Classroom is easy to find and there is ample parking at a lot not far from the school. Pros: Lots of great classes to choose from. more

My husband and I went to a couples cooking class last Friday night and had the absolute worst food and experience at a cooking class EVER!\r \r To begin with, there was no instruction on the recipes. I understand that we were not going to be each making everything, but how are we supposed to know how to make the other dishes unless they are discussed? I\r \r In addition, it seemed like from the beginning that the class was very unorganized. Chef Eric was running around trying to tell everyone what to do and in between us cooking we were just standing around. Too much standing around that we could have made another dish, maybe even two. I tried to watch what he was telling other people, but it wasn?t easy with the other students standing in front. Even with all the standing around we were amazed that things were not done on time. The chef said we would eat at 9:30 pm, which is already late, and instead we were eating at 10 pm. There could have been much more accomplished during that waiting period that would have allowed us to eat when scheduled, but it appeared that Chef Eric wanted to do a majority of it, which left minimal cooking to us. \r \r On top of all that the food was horrible! It was on par with cafeteria food, and the dessert we were served wasn?t even ready since we only made it 30 mintues before class ended!! I have never had chocolate mousse that was still warm and soupy. We overheard other people making similar comments about some of the food as well, including the fact that we felt the fish that was served was not fresh since it smelled horrible when it first came out of the fridge. \r \r All this for $200!! We could have gone to an amazing dinner, but instead got this. I warn everyone before taking a class at this school - avoid at all costs.\r Cons: Expensive, bad food, no instruction more