Hipcooks

I’ve just attended one class here and it was a fun experience. The space is clean, bright, and cheery, the instructor knowledgable, pleasant, and a good leader (thanks, Gretchen!!), and the flow of the evening well-​organized. A great date night, a fun way to fill three hours, and a really tasty dinner with nice people.
If you’ve ever taken a more formal or academic cooking class, however, you may be disappointed. The approach to cooking five dishes was very much «divide and conquer» and teacher-​led, meaning that actual hands-​on time per person was VERY limited… i.e. one participant squeezed some limes … another stirred. One lucky participant got to crack some eggs, another used a mortar and pestle to grind up some spices. My point is, *you personally* will not be cooking all the dishes listed in the course description. To me this felt more like a lecture and demonstration with a small amount of student involvement, compared to classes I’ve taken in the past.
Also note that while the set-​up is comfortable and modern, it doesn’t seem like a commercial kitchen — we were cooking on portable stoves heated by butane canisters, which, distractingly, had to be replaced throughout the course of the evening.

Took the Thai One On class.
It was fun making the food but it didn’t taste authentic at all. Most of it was decent but I definitely wouldn’t ever make it again. I was most looking forward to learning how to make pad thai but the dish we made in this class was pretty terrible.
That being said it is a very fun environment and I’ve heard great things about other classes they offer. I just wouldn’t recommend this one.

I was really excited when my husband booked this Thai cooking class for date-​night, but it was a bit disappointing. For $ 140, we expected a lot more… we were not very fond of the teacher either, she was patronizing, and kind of condescending. The food was awful, really, it was not good at all. We should have just gone to a Thai restaurant.

I have participated in various cooking classes in the Bay area and now I wish they had a Hipcooks here :) Hipcooks in Seattle was the perfect venue for my best friend’s bridal shower. The instructor Bonny is a skilled instructor and lots of fun to work with. We made a salad, shrimp and scallop ceviche, herbed sweet potato chips and Pot de crème au chocolat. It was all delicious! My Peruvian mother participated in the class and being from Lima, she is an expert. She gave the recipe and instructor two thumbs up. All 14 ladies enjoyed their experience and left extremely happy. The bride is still talking about the event. Seriously, please come to the Bay area…

Bought my husband the paella cooking class as a birthday present and we had an incredible time! Bonnie was so down-​to-​earth and fun. We picked up some new tips and ate delicious food over those three hours! It’s a good deal considering the amount of food /​wine /​knowledge /​fun. We’ll definitely be back.

Took the Thai 3 for me class with 5 other friends for my birthday and the class was awesome! There’s no knife skills needed so it did turn out to be more of a mixing class where all the food was pre-​prepped, but the class was still hands on + instructor was very knowledgable. I feel like a left with a good grasp of recreating Thai flavors by taste. Class starts promptly and ends on time; I especially loved the 3-​course design of it where we make the appetizers, eat, then cook the main entrée, and eat again, followed by desert — or else we would have starved to death.
$ 70 that covers food, instructor, all the tools, and tip + taxes is very reasonable. I would definitely do this as a birthday event again!

My girlfriend and I did the «Thai One On» class, which she chose because the menu looked great. We had a good time with the other participants, but the class itself (especially for $ 70 per person) was very disappointing.
Besides rolling a few spring rolls, all the cooking we got to do was mix together ingredients that had already been prepared. Some of the food was decent, but nothing good enough for us to want to make again. Most disappointing was the pad thai that didn’t taste anything like pad thai.
The instructor was nice, but she lacked the expertise to teach us any useful skills. She told us that she became an instructor by volunteering a couple of times as an assistant with Hipcooks. We thought we’d be learning from someone with actual experience making professional quality food.
We had fun. Maybe I should have expected less.

Ask me why my friends beg me for my pasta recipe? Hipcooks.
I had my first experience as a volunteer (which is pretty cool because if you do 3 rounds of volunteering, you get a free class). Even as a volunteer, I learned a ton and had a great time.
I helped out Gretchen (she rocked) for the Pasta in Casa! class.
I was super impressed with how things were accessible for cooks of all levels of experience. Even making home made pasta was made easy, and, since everything was hands on, it was easy to learn and pick up techniques.
The presentation was really organized and easy to follow and eating the creations was an absolute blast.
The recipes were AMAZING, and even cooler, after the class, they email you the recipes so you can look like a total bad@$$ in front of your friends when you make them a meal and know they will be begging for more.
I look forward to upping my game in the kitchen, and I look forward to planning a date night with the hubs at Hipcooks.
Take a class! You’ll be glad you did!

I have taken several of cooking classes in Seattle and I would say the Jamaican Me Crazy class that I took with my fiancé here a few weeks ago may have been the best yet. It was for sure the most fun and I definitely left the most stuffed that I ever have from a cooking class. So I think that deserves an A+ in my book.
The class we took had 11 students and the instructor. Our instructor was funny, informative and very patient. We all got to be hands on in different capacities throughout the night while we all stood at the cooking center for the whole night (it was a lot of standing so come prepared for that). Most everything was prepped for us but there were a few items that we cut, ground, or processed ourselves for instruction. The menu was super flavorful and fairly easy to make, learning some new ingredients and flavors along the way. I absolutely loved the coconut stew that we made and will definitely be making that again. We also learned to make a wet jerk marinade that was excellent on the cod and pineapple, a fresh and flavorful mango, shrimp and papaya salad on butter lettuce leaves, a black bean salad very similar to one I already have a recipe for, and flambeed bananas with a homemade rum raisin coconut ice cream. OMG so amazing. We also made and poured ourselves rum cocktails towards the end of cooking and post knife use.
I was thankful that we were able to enjoy the stew midway throughout the night or else I would have been starving by the time we got to eat because we didn’t sit down to dinner until about 9pm, when the class was technically scheduled to end. But with the snack I had no complaints and certainly filled myself to the brim of the delicious food. I left with a much better knowledge of Jamaican and Caribbean food and a yearning to duplicate the recipes again!

Romantic dinner for two! That was the name of the class we took for a birthday for my girlfriend. It was a lot of fun and very informative. I try to arrive with no expectations but to learn and have a good time and we did both. I did feel that the amount of food made was plenty for all but not enough for the group size as some weren’t able to have the hands on they may have wanted.
I would recommend this place if you want to learn and have a good time.
Making soufflé was my favorite part

Took the «Turning Japanese» course a few weeks back as a gift for my bf. We eat a lot of sushi so figured we would see if it was worth learning to make it ourselves. Overall we had a great time and learned a lot!
Our class had very little cooking but lots of instruction on rolling sushi, seasoning rice, cutting fish and finding good ingredients. I feel a little more educated now when I search around Uwagimaya which is great. I love the group effort to prep different things and we got to sample hot and cold sake and Japanese beer while prepping and rolling.
I learned that sushi rice is stickier than anything known to man. Not joking, it is impossible to get off your hands!
Our instructor was fantastic and gave us lots of good tips! The only thing I think this class could use is maybe a little more guidance as to what ingredients pair well in a sushi roll and how to build flavors. We were basically told to go for it and make whatever we wanted with what was available but I feel like all our roll attempts tasted quite bland and I couldn’t tell you why.
I would love to try out some of the more traditional cooking classes here! A great way to spend an evening!

Eek! Methinks not is right.
I love to cook, I love trying new recipes and am always ready to learn. I have taken other classes from different places and always had a great time.
I took the romantic dinner for two class expecting to learn a few new things and have a fun night out but instead, wish I had spent the money on going out to a nice restaurant instead.
I also thought it was interesting, when we were doing introductions, I noticed that it was everyone’s first time attending a class there. When i have taken classes at other places, there are usually at least a few returning people. Maybe there’s a reason for that?
Pros:
— I got to practice my knife skills, which is never a bad thing
— The person I attended class with, we still had fun chatting
Cons:
— We didn’t eat until about 9pm. The class was supposed to be over at this time.
— We didn’t even get any FOOD until about 8:15pm (class started at 6). I would have been fine with that, but at least warn us ahead of time.
— I am not okay with allowing the entire class to dunk their fingers into a dish to «taste». I get it, we all washed our hands, but that in my opinion still poses a great risk for exposing people to unsanitary things. Particularly when you remind us that we have 10 fingers.
— Please, stop flailing the chef’s knife around when you’re talking, it’s setting a bad example for others who may be novices in the kitchen.
— I still have not received the recipes that we made. They are supposed to be e-​mailed to us.
— The ventilation in the room seems pretty poor. I left with my clothes smelling like food and my eyes burning of onions the whole time. I was not the only one that felt like this.
My Recommendations:
— Have a little appetizer, or even just some bread, olive oil and vinegar, for students to snack on when they arrive. Or tell us ahead of time we’re not eating for the first two hours.
— I still have yet to receive the recipes we made. Why? I’m not sure. You sent out a reminder e-​mail, just send the recipes then. Not that hard.
— When you’re already behind in the schedule of the class, please, don’t make us wait while you do the dishes.
— Please, don’t let people stick their fingers in the food dishes that we’re all sharing. You don’t know how well people are or are not washing their hands. It’s gross.
— If you’re going to have people standing for 3 hours with no chairs on a hard cement floor, provide some rubber mats to stand on. Costco sells them for cheap.
The overall dinner was okay — nothing to write home about. Literally, because I don’t even have the recipes. Definitely will not be returning here again.

Attended class last night and I’m still a little irked. While Bonnie, the instructor was very pleasant and upbeat, it was not as well run a class as it could have been. We spent way too much time on knife skills to only use the knife for about 15 minutes. We did not learn to cook anything concurrently, in fact every dish was prepped for and made separately. While sure this makes sense for novice cooks, this is not a reality for people slightly more seasoned in the kitchen.
There was no indication on the class description or upon arrival that although the time frame is 6−9pm for the dinner, you won’t actually eat ANYTHING until more than half way through, 8:17pm to be exact. I’ve not taken a ton of cooking classes, but why food wouldn’t be available to snack on is beyond me. I would’ve had dinner BEFORE and brought a to-​go box had I known that we wouldn’t start the main course until 8:40pm.
Among gross things, she allowed several people to «taste test» the food with all their digits freely. Gross. gross. gross. Not OK. Provide like 5 individual taste spoons for people to use at their will! They’re not that expensive and it’s far more sanitary.
She also made vegetable stock from scraps… in the scraps there was an onion, on that onion was a sticker. So the adhesive of that sticker was in the stock. gross.
We didn’t eat the dinner until after 9pm. We didn’t finish dessert until 10pm yes I stayed for that, we made crème brûlée and that’s the one thing I’d never done before.
Expectations were very poorly set. I would not recommend this to a friend, or for a group, unless you have full control over the schedule. They were also poorly set for what to expect today. We should have received recipes, that has yet to happen.

Got this fabulous cooking class as a gift from the Mr. for Christmas. Well done babe!
The location is in South Lake Union and had lots of street parking when we arrived at 5:30. The location is cute, bright, and airy!
The class was made up of 12 people so it was the perfect size to cook, chat, and still be able to ask questions to the instructor.
The food was fabulous and easy enough for a novice like me to prepare. I learned some tricks and will definitely be making crème brûlée at home! Mmmm
It would be nice to have stress matts to stand on since you stand in one spot for a few hours. Also make sure you eat before the class as any noshing is done at the very end.
This is a wonderful experience for a date night, girls night, or even alone! Can’t wait to do it again :)

I went to a Market to Tablet Class and absolutely loved it. Our teacher, Bonny, was so knowledgeable, helpful and really funny. I learned a lot (and I’ve been to a lot of cooking classes around Seattle with different companies). However, it’s been a month since the class and I have still not received the recipes. I have followed up with them 4 times! And only heard a response back the first time, saying that they would come within a couple more days. Now they are clearly ignoring my recipe requests.
The worst part is, we were told not take any notes during the class, because rest assured, we’d be getting the recipes soon. Because of that, I’m having trouble remember a lot of the specifics and am unable to cook those dishes :(
I was planning on taking several more classes with Hipcooks because my experience in class was so amazing, but now, it seems like a waste of money since I can’t bring those recipes into my daily life. I feel like the point of a cooking class is to learn to cook something new and hopefully be able to replicate some of the recipes at home, and the lack of recipes kind of defeats that purpose.
Plus, ignoring your customers’ communications is terrible customer service. They are likely losing a lot of future business from me that they otherwise would have surely gotten… huge bummer Hipcooks.

Hipcooks delivered a very impactful skill building and informative class for a kitchen noob that I am.
I signed up for the Knifing class as everyone winces every time I touch again. I walked away feeling confident that with a little more practice, that will no longer be the case.
The class was very informative teaching us the various knife choices, what to use for and how along with funny stories from Bonny, the instructor. Her personality kept the class engaged and involved.
For the class, we practicing basic cuts such as slicing and chopping on various vegetable and fruits to get us all comfortable. At the conclusion, the vegetables we diced were turned into delicious pico de gallo which we enjoyed.
Overall, the class gave me the foundation to build upon my knifing skills and highly recommend the class to others. For improvements, I wish we got more hands on time as that was only half of the class time.

Fun times had by all!
I took the Cooking 101 class and had such a great time. Bonny, the teacher for that class was so good and fun. She was patient with how most of us needed step by step instructions and were newbies in the kitchen. We learned knife skills and made delicious food that we ate after it was finished. We made carrot ginger soup, pasta with salsa verde, lentils, pan seared cod, and an apple galette.
I can’t wait to take another class!

Such a fun way to cook and eat!
Came here for a pasta making class last year. It took a while to get that spot. They offer so many classes almost everyday. Classes are all different. And get filled fast. I was determined to get in for the pasta making class. It seems to have a super fun menu. Fun dishes and fun teacher — Monica!
I bought Unilocal deals for two and waited several months to get in. Even rescheduled a few times in between. They were so accommodating. But atlas, I got into my pasta making class! 16 spots on a Saturday? Filled up a few weeks ahead in no time. But I made it. Woot!
Brought my jet legged self to here bright and semi early. The space is pretty. Bright, colorful and organized. Mind you, I’ve already know how to make pasta. I do make it often at home. But I don’t have the fancy machines. I use my hands! And with family recipes. This was my chance to learn how to make it fast and fun!
I remember working as soon as I got in till I left several hours later. They have a huge station set up with all the ingredients for 4 courses of pasta including dessert and sauces. Fresh handmade pastas to be exact. We get to pick our aprons and which station we want to start! Get a glass of wine, wash your hands and let the games begin!
First course– handmade sage fettuccine! Eggs were cracking, people were kneading the dough, some of us were using the stove to get started on the sauce. It was fun! A lot of work but fun. Everyone gets to partake in dough making action. And some did the sauce. You can walk around and join others in cutting the pasta, running it through the machine and such as well. It came out beautifully! We made salmon cream sauce and head a tasty breakfast pasta! It was tasty!
Second course — pumpkin and sage ravioli! Yummm! I got to make my own raviolos! Pumpkin paste was a nice touch. Fried some sage! Boiled the raviolos and had another course. Tasty tasty!
Third and fourth course: we went back to our stations to roll up candy shape pasta filled with ricotta cheese and another one with spinach and cheese. Made similar but different tomato sauces for both. It was a long 3 – 4 hours class. But it went by fast.
After each course, we all get to sit down on the huge communal tables and eat. Eat, drink wine and mingle with other students. Our teacher had an italian background but she’s never been to Italy. She did a great job teaching us and making it fun. We all worked our butts off! We cooked, we rolled, we ate! Definitely worth spending my afternoon here.
Wear comfy shoes and clothes that you don’t mind getting food on. It does get chaotic. A good fun chaos! And you will leave full and sleepy. It’s a win — win all around! And they have other classes too. Moroccan night, thai night! Dim sum making classes and so on!
Does this mean I will give up eating out and make pasta every night like nobody’s business? Or try to become the next Mario Batalli? No probably not. I pride myself on being a good cook! Pasta making was a great way to incorporate what I already do at home into fun and new techniques and recipes :) It’s definitely a good fun!

My friends got me a gift certificate for a private cooking class, and we had the best time! There were 12 of us and we had an absolute blast. Bonny is a spectacular teacher — she provides the perfect balance of helpful cooking tips balanced with enabling us to have lots of social, fun time as well. Sometimes we got a little out of hand but she always brought us back and got us focused on the next course. The food we made was relatively easy to prepare and delicious! We had the elegant, intimate dinner which included a wonderful arugula & beet salad, beautiful steaks, and parsnip & potato mash, plus a delightful gluten-​free orange cake.
The location near REI in South Lake Union is great — a bright, airy environment, perfect for cooking with friends.
I would definitely return both for social and corporate events, as well as try her many classes.

A fun activity to do + dinner!
We took the sushi class. Our instructor were down to earth and knowledgeable. They were very accommodating (especially to the vegans). The environment was very relaxed, you felt comfortable asking for what you needed, like hanging out with friends. I like that we learned up close and hands on. We were encouraged to touch and taste. Kind of an ick factor at first because everyone were strangers and we were supposed to be making each other’s food with our hands… but we got over it and enjoyed ourselves.
I do agree that for someone who SERIOUSLY wants to learn every dish taught in class, it may not be the best (this isn’t culinary school) because you do break up into small groups/​pairs and work on one part of the meal while other people work on other parts of the meal. There were dishes that I had NO IDEA what went into it or how they made it, which actually made for good dinner time conversation.
Overall it’s a fun activity to do with a friend and you will learn how to cook for fun. But it’s not a place I would go by myself and seriously try to learn how to become a chef. Maybe that’s the point? Cooking should be fun :)