NEW for 2006/7 !

Join our fixed programme of cookery sessions next Spring -

In partnership with our chef Gianluca Pardini we are offering cookery sessions for keen cooks every week, Monday to Friday, during February March and April September and October. The sessions will run in the morning at a cost from 60 euros per head per half day session, including food and wine.

MEDIA REVIEWS

We have won acclaim from numerous national publications which have sent journalists along to one of our Vallicorte Cookery Courses. Click links below to read full articles.

Evening Standard
Nicole Swengley: CAN'T cook? Learn how in romantic Tuscany. . . . .
Click here for more details.

The Observer

Lucy Cavendish: We went, we saw, we were conquered... The Observer lists Vallicorte in the top five European cookery schools
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Financial Times

John Westbrooke: Learn to cook the Tuscan way...
Click here for more details.

COOKERY

GIANLUCA PARDINI

Gianluca is warm and fun. As a good Italian boy he did what his parents wished and and pursued a degree in the History of Art and Design but by the age of 14 he was already shaping his true career in the kitchen, working holidays and weekends in local restaurants of his home town in Versiglia. From 1976 he took over the role of chef, first in Florence's prestigious Hotel Excelsior, then in Orleans (France). By 1984 he was restaurant manager in Siena, on its famous Piazza del Campo before owning and running the reknowned Mecenate in Lucca for ten years.

During these years as chef and restaurant owner he spent time as a gastronomic consultant for a Tokyo-based company which in 1989 led to the establishment of the Academy Bunryu, Siena, where he played the dual role of director and coordinating chef. He remains a frequent guest speaker, teacher and consultant at important cooking academies and restaurants in Japan and the USA. Among his qualifications is that of Honorary Professor at Chicago's Du Page College and Honorary Member of the Society of Friends, Escoffier.

More recently he developed the International Academy of Italian Cuisine, based in Lucca, extending his international Japanese/USA clientele. This initiative has been enriched by a strong re/awakening in Tuscany of its gastronomic culture, the concept of 'slowfood', and the interested support of local restauranteurs.

Moving easily from the Italian language into English, French or Japanese Gianluca has the wit, charm and a deep knowledge of his craft which makes his lessons informative and entertaining. The meal which follows becomes a great social experience.

OTHER ARTICLES

Pizza Al Fresco, John Bonallack My Place in the Sun, Berenice Bonallack