Choose by dish first
- Takoyaki and okonomiyaki are Osaka’s own dishes. You can cook both in one class in Bakuromachi, make takoyaki between sake tastings in Namba, or grill okonomiyaki in the home-style class. The takoyaki and okonomiyaki page sets the classes beside the takoyaki tasting walk.
- Ramen classes range from noodles made from scratch with gyoza in Namba to a bowl with sake or beer in Bakuromachi, a broth of your choice near Osaka Castle and a gluten-free version in Higashiosaka. The ramen class comparison goes through noodles, broth and group size.
- Sushi is a single class in Shinsaibashi, rolls and nigiri in 100 minutes, with the widest choice of diet menus on this site. More on the sushi class.
Where the kitchens are
None of these classes runs in a restaurant kitchen on a shopping street. Cooking Sun teaches in room 202 of the SUNREGIS building in Namba, and the sake and takoyaki class sits on the second floor of a side lane nearby, which reviewers find hard to spot. The sushi class is on the third floor of the Galleria Acca building in Shinsaibashi. Both XLSWORLD classes take place in room 303 of a residential building in Bakuromachi; you ring the bell for 303.
Three classes lie outside the Namba area. The ramen studio is near Osaka Castle, in the Tenmangu area, and starts five minutes after the set time without waiting for latecomers. The home-style class meets at the FamilyMart at Exit 4B of Minami-Morimachi Station. The gluten-free class is furthest out, in Nukata in Higashiosaka, about five minutes on foot from Nukata Station; allow for the train ride east of the centre.
Two hours on the listing, three in the kitchen
The XLSWORLD classes, ramen with gyoza and okonomiyaki with takoyaki, are listed at two hours, but the schedule on the same listing runs to about three. Plan your evening around the longer figure. The sushi class is the shortest at 100 minutes and fits before a dinner elsewhere; the home-style class with the supermarket visit takes four hours.
Drinks with the meal
Drinks vary more than the food. Both XLSWORLD classes serve sake or beer with the meal you cooked, the sake and takoyaki class is built around a tasting from more than ten kinds of sake, the ramen studio near Osaka Castle includes one drink, and the home-style class and the gluten-free class offer an optional sake tasting or pairing. If you want to continue the evening with drinks, the bar crawls in Namba and Ura-Namba start in the same part of town.
A supermarket, not Kuromon Market
The home-style class is the only one here that includes shopping, and it shops in a local supermarket rather than at Kuromon Market. You then cook okonomiyaki, niku-sui, Osaka’s beef soup, and gyoza, and take the recipes home. For the market itself, the Kuromon Market food walk is a separate daytime tour with tastings at the stalls.
Group size and diets
Kitchens are small, and so are the groups: up to 8 at Cooking Sun, XLSWORLD and the ramen studio, up to 7 in the home-style class, up to 6 at the sake and takoyaki class and no more than 4 in the gluten-free class. With so few places per class, dates in cherry blossom season and Golden Week go first, so book those weeks early. Diet options vary from set vegan and halal menus to none at all; the diet guide lists each class.
