Mirepoix Cooking School

We had a fantastic date night themed cooking class here yesterday evening. The ambiance, food, instruction, and whole experience made it such a night to remember. I cannot rave enough about the quality of the food. Every single thing we ate was DELICIOUS. (Huge shout out to Anna the chef who was super patient with my millions of questions. I will be one of the first people to go to the opening of your new restaurant when it happens!) Also, the people in our class were fantastic. It felt like one big family. We will definitely do this again!
If you’re looking for something new and fun to do in Metro Detroit for a date night, this is the place to be!

Have just celebrated my birthday at Mirepoix. We all had a great time and it was probably one of the most fun birthday parties for a long-​long time! Very attentive and engaged chefs (special thanks to Dale and Robert). Great ideas and top-​of-​the-​shelf products. I still can’t get those steak bites out of my head… Now after having tried a social cooking class and an «iron chef style» competition I’m thinking about taking the regular classes at Mirepoix and hopefully expanding my cooking skills beyond my daily use of the microwave! Thanks guys!

The cooking class we attended today should be called social hour to cook food for other people «class». This was not the cooking class I was expecting where you have someone in front demonstrate for you how to cook something and you follow along at your own station. Instead, you are handed a booklet of recipes from the Internet (really??) on «dim sum» type foods, split into groups to take care of a dish, and then left to your own devices to cook enough of your dish for a group of 20. My boyfriend and I were assigned to make a hoisin sauce for some meat skewers for 4 hours. We ended up just joining another group and helping them make their dumplings. The chefs were not instructing — just walking around and talking about a cuisine they clearly didn’t understand. The only two things I appreciated about my time was when we got together at the end to eat and nibble on the food. I enjoyed the conversations and we all followed the instructions enough to make some pretty tasty food. I also appreciated the free beverage service for water and pop. The beer and wine you had to purchase but they made sake bombs to match the occasion for free. That was the other thing that got me. The menu was supposed to be inspired by dim sum dishes and instead of the usual menu of shrimp dumplings, egg tarts, radish cakes, etc — there was Mongolian beef skewers, a coconut tart, vegetarian dumplings, red pepper shrimp, 5-​spice calamari, Korean ribs and some other red bean dessert. My boyfriend was pretty disappointed that the menu was completely off target and that the chefs «teaching» didn’t know what they were doing. Then he pointed out to me that one of the recipes from
! He paid about $ 70 for each of us to take this class and I don’t blame him for being overly disappointed. We made the best of it, met some pretty funny people, and decided we would find somewhere else for some actual cooking classes.
:Edit:
I contacted Mirepoix asking if we could get refunded our cooking class payments due to problems we came across and the manager was very understanding. I really appreciate the quick and nice customer service I received.

I had a ton of fun at the vegetarian cooking class. It was the perfect size (8 people) and we made a big variety of dishes (which we enjoyed at the end of class AND got to take home in as many take-​out containers as we wanted to fill). My only complaint is that there wasn’t a ton of instruction. We were all assigned different tasks, given recipes and then left to get things done. The instructors were really kind, and helped whenever you had a question, there just wasn’t a lot of «teaching» that was part of the class. That said, I would totally go back for another class, because it was a lot of fun, the facilities are great, and I came away with some tasty recipes that I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise.
Our creations included: a spicy walnut hummus, a roasted butternut squash black rice salad (the favorite of several of the class participants), pumpkin gnocchi, a grilled veggie polenta lasagna, and a tart cherry crumble.

Love, love, and love… Period.
I attended the pizza session and it was excellent! I was just as excited to get the recipes as I was to attend and make everything.
The selection of recipes was exceptional and we had the opportunity to make/​try standard pizza dough, bread flour dough, and whole wheat dough — all of which were excellent. We also utilized a variety of cooking techniques, and I’d have to say that while the baked pizzas were good, I think my favorite were the grilled. MMMmm!!! Also, we made one of the best pestos I have ever had and DAMN does it make a great pizza.
Some of the recipes included white pizza with arugula, simple Mexican pizzas, ratatouille pizza, and pear with gorgonzola pizza.
A bit pricy but totally worth it!!! I’d love to go back!

Recently I did a few cooking classes at Mirepoix. Since then, I’ve been trying to get into some of their other classes, but they fill up quickly.
The staff at Mirepoix make it easy to learn your way around the kitchen. Whether you are already an accomplished cook or are just learning how to hold you knife while chopping, they will help you improve your skill set.
The classes I went to work by breaking off into small groups and then each group chooses 2 – 3 items from the menu to prepare. After all the items are prepared, we sit around & eat what we’ve created while discussing how it was done. The staff will often show how to do an advanced skill while we are cooking and they encourage you to walk around & see how the other groups are making their dishes. This helps you understand what is needed to prepare those items that you aren’t directly involved with.
I really enjoyed this class, and although I am a decent cook, I learned a lot… even about the proper techniques to use with knives. The only drawback is that the classes are not cheap, so I feel that I can only pick a few that I really want to attend.

We had a great night at a recent Mirepoix couples cooking class. We joined a group of six others – some total newbies to cooking, and a couple who also knew their way around a kitchen.
The mantra of Mirepoix is mise en place, literally, «putting in its place.» We heard this again and again, and really, it’s the way I like to cook.
Our cooking and dining went like this – one group made cheese straws (as close to crack as cheese straws get), a hearty boulliabaisse, and chicken breast Provencal.
Our team made pan seared duck breast (this was my doing), which was placed atop a salad of greens, spiced pecans and vanilla vinaigrette, char grilled angus strip steaks – sliced onto a baguette with boursin cheese, pomme frittes with aioli, and a caramelized onion tart that was like candy!
After cooking for several hours, we ordered glasses of wine and mowed on this feast before us. A reward for our collective hard work.
And the best part – someone else cleans up! Win/​Win!