A cooking class you won’t forget!! 🥹 - Alessia is such an amazing woman! She knows everything about Siracusa, from the street market where she has been working since young to the history of the city where she’s now running her own cooking class. We started the day with a walk through the street market where we tasted some italian cheese, caponata, croissant with ricotta and a glass of wine. We then bought some fresh ingredients we would have then cooked at the cooking class (fresh fish of the day, and veggies). We bought this experience as a bday present for my partner who loves both cooking and the italin cuisine and everything's been great! 🥰❤️ Can’t recommend Alessia enough!!

Incredible ! Learn, cook and eat in a cheerful environment, Alessia is very good! Highly recommended - A truly unmissable experience with Alessia. The location is very beautiful and the garden is fascinating. She is very knowledgeable and super welcoming, we spent carefree and cheerful hours learning about the history of the food we were preparing, the ingredients are all organic and local and Alessia enhances the flavours. We cooked and ate happily. A unique experience to understand and learn the Sicilian culinary culture.

Unforgettable experience with Alessia!! - I cannot say enough about this wonderful experience. Alessia came to our AirBNB and cooked for 7 of us. Each course more wonderful than the next. We had fresh sicilian dishes: bruschetta, sicilian meatballs, sicilian eggplant balls, home made caponata, home made ravioli, and Nonna's veal cutlets all complemented by homemade breads. Grand finale was homemade cannoli which filled and dipped in pistacchio crumbs. Alessia was so kind to explain about local foods and food traditions. Book her if you can or go to her restaurant Vistro in Ortigia!! Thank you, Alessia and Frederico!!

Best experience in all of Sicily - Our cooking instructor was patient and knowledgeable about local ingredients. This was a wonderful hands on class where we made dinner and then ate it along with a scrumptious dessert. We absolutely loved this!!

Wonderful morning, suitable for gluten-free diets - We went through the marketplace with Alessia (where she knows everyone) and then back to her kitchen to cook lunch with the purchases. Alessia tailors the menu to the needs of the clients and was easily able to accommodate the member of our party with celiac disease. She is certified by the AIC (Italian Celiac Association) but her kitchen is not exclusively GF. Alessia is a gem. The whole experience was delightful from start to delicious finish. It was one of the highlights of our time in Sicily. This was the most expensive activity we did, and it was definitely worth it.

You will love this -- I promise! - My family (adult children) and I shopped and cooked with Alessia while traveling in Sicily in Oct/Nov of this year. She is delightful. She's also knowledgeable and guided us so beautifully through buying supplies at the market and cooking a lovely lunch. Highly recommend!

Amazing Experience - My husband and I were looking for fun stuff to do while in Italy. We stumbled across this cooking class with Alessia and it sounded fun since we are trying to get more into cooking. Alessia was AMAZING and literally the kindest person. She made this the best experience and it was honestly one of the funnest days we had together! We met her at the market and she showed us around while we picked out ingredients for the pasta! We shopped around and had an absolute blast. We then went back to start cooking and she prepared a table for us and then continued to show us how to make everything. It was THE BEST pasta and meatballs! After we ate, she surprised us with a Cannoli to make! When we come back to Italy I cannot wait to book with her again. I 100% recommend her and the experience to anyone!

Enjoyed every minute of it! Great cooking class. - Enjoyed every minute of it! Alessia was so warm and welcoming. Great market tour and great introduction into doable Sicilian dishes.

Perfect birthday, great company, awesome food! - Visiting Sicily for the first time and celebrating my wife's 50th birthday, I booked a 'secret' cooking class with Alessia for her, me and a couple of friends. And what a celebration it was! Alessia is such an accommodating, kind, happy and knowledgable host! We had an awesome day in her company, and she took us to the market to shop ingredients for our lunch cooking, and while there she let us in on some the amazing stories behind the fantastic local produce of Sicily, and a few tastings along the way just made us more excited about being in this truly fantastic region. She is very patient and good at explaining and with a smile she always had answers to all our questions, and her passion for and involvement in local ingredients, slow food and cooking shines through in everything she says and do. The cooking class was just amazing. Well, she cooked the most of it, but just being in the kitchen with her talking and tasting and being 'a fly on the wall' taught us so much about Sicilian cuisine! The lunch was so flavour- and colourful and accompanied by Allesia’s great personality and some nice chilled white wine. Alessia had even made a ricotta cake for us to celebrate my wife! We left happy and full - and digesting all the wonderful experiences from this fantastic day! Alessia also helped us book a 2-hour boat trip around Ortigia after the lunch - perfect way to end the day with a dip in the sea and some chill time around this beautiful gem of a town. We couldn’t have wished for a better introduction to the Sicilian cuisine than the one Alessia gave us. If you love to cook and want a passionate and relaxed and fun guide to the vast world of Sicilian cuisine, Alessia and Smile And Food is the only place you need to look!

What Fun (and Tasty)! - Our family of five had a great tour of the market with Alessia to start off our morning -- and really used what was fresh and local to shape what we were going to make for the rest of the session. She is a font of knowledge about the history of food in the Siracusa area as well as Sicily overall, and that shows in her care of picking ingredients and conveying what is unique to the local area. Then, a short walk and onto cooking. What fun we had preparing two dishes for lunch -- a delicious stuffed calamari and a seafood pasta! Everyone had their roles and not only did we all get to participate, but we then had the joy of sitting around the sharing that with each other. What a wonderful morning! Strongly recommend for all ages and all taste buds. Alessi's knowledge can tailor this to all adventurous and picky eaters!