Cooking With Anita

Had a holiday cooking class with Anita for a team event and it was so great! Anita and the assistants were awesome and my team had such a fun time and became real chefs overnight. The house was beautiful and so magical, fully decorated for the holidays! The food was so delicious too and I was so full after. Definitely recommend this class for fun team events!

I’ve been attending events with Cooking with Anita for over 10 years and I love them! I’ve made some wonderful friends there and find it a great way to get to know people. I agree with another reviewer that it is not so much a class, as a chance to cook a prepared menu with friends. There is a top Cordon Bleu trained chef there, but she’s there to help over 20 people and I don’t believe I’ve ever learned any new techniques at the event (unlike other cooking classes I’ve attended). However, it is a relaxed and fun atmosphere, and the opportunity to cook food with friends with someone else to do the shopping, the prep, and the clean up, is priceless! The house is beautiful, in a cluttered European sort of way, and the outside patio is wonderful, especially in good weather. One tip, bring a designated driver or watch your wine intake — there is plenty of it!

I went to Cooking with Anita last weekend. It is a very fun cooking event. There was about 25 of us and we were broken up into groups and each group cooked a part of the meal. The kitchen looks big but when you have 25 people in it, it becomes cozy and that is part of the fun. Anita and Lars are great hosts. They are both friendly and helpful while navigating the recipes and kitchen. After we finished cooking, we sat in the dining room area to eat the meal. The dining room is setup with Candelabras and table clothes. It feels like a fancy restaurant. The house is very unique with all kinds of art and nick knacks. It is all part of the experience, I will do it definitely do this again.

I absolutely adore Anita and Lars and their cooking classes are incredibly fun. I’ve been going to Cooking with Anita for many, many years and I have enjoyed watching it grow in popularity.
Lars and Anita have a beautiful home and they invite you in as if you’re family. They do all the shopping and all the clean-​up, so all you have to do is drink wine, cook, eat, and have a great time.
The meals are always generous in portion, the cooking is expertly supervised and even though we all make mistakes here and there, somehow the food always turns out yummy. But it’s the experience of the whole evening — from an early start at 6pm to the time Anita kicks us out around midnight — that you’ll keep going back for over and over and over again.
Just go. Don’t think about it. Just go, and you’ll be completely hooked by the allure of that magical kitchen and the hospitality of a family who just loves having people over for dinner. Lucky us!

I can’t cook. I’m the product of a gourmet chef and a history of family owned restaurants going back decades, yet the only thing I’m really good at in the kitchen is a) shaking my fist at the microwave and b) cleaning up.
Cooking with Anita helped me live the delusion that I can cook like a pro, making food that I actually enjoyed eating! Anita’s incredible instruction and encouragement to try new things and Lars with his bubbly Albert Einstein personality (he totally LOOKS the part) makes it absolutely the closest you can get to cooking with and for friends, even though you probably couldn’t do this at home :) Their home is adorable and in a quiet neighborhood on Mercer Island. If you aren’t charmed every moment you’re there, get help, because this is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve ever had.
I have cooked something «from scratch» only a dozen or so times in my life. Half of them were at Anita’s and the only good stuff, was what she showed me how to make.
Need to get back there soon. If not for the instruction, for the food and good times.

I wouldn’t call this a class as much as a chance to cook with friends and eat it afterwards. If you have questions during the process, Nadine is very helpful, but Anita is critical and unpleasant. Even though if you were to look at the kitchen empty, it seems big, but put 25 people in there and it becomes uncomfortable and unsafe. We had one knife injury and one burn while our party was going on. Also, her description on the website of «things hanging all over» is true — and there is dust and grime sitting on all that stuff. Just imagine hanging plastic ivy, angels, fairy art, figurines, baskets etc and utensils and bowls piling up everywhere covered in dust. We were told to «dust out» the bowls before we used them and sure enough, dust and gunk in them. And then there is the super fat racoon that comes around to the outside dining porch who is used to getting fed the scraps. The whole thing kind of gave me the creeps. But different experiences are what it’s all about — I just wouldn’t do this one again.

Been here 3 times so far and will continue going back as long as Anita and Lars are still opening their house to us. Anita always supplies us with top notch ingredients for her awesome menus. This last time there we had a Christmas theme party there and Anita had the house decked out from floor to ceiling.
Would highly recommend it to anyone that can round up at least 14 friends. The $ 55 she charges is actually very reasonable for a 5 star 7 course meal including free flowing wine all night.

Anita and Lars run a really cook in-​home cooking school that has the equipment of a 4-​star restaurant, right down to the huge paella pan that’s propane fired. They take groups of students from chopping to finish, just show up, work a little, and you have a fine meal at the end of the evening — and some new skills in the kitchen.
The holiday meals are extra special as the house is decorated from top to bottom.