1
Step One
Cook all four dishes
Hands on, start to finish. Caramelise the pork, stuff the tofu, balance the sweet and the sour — the everyday cooking Hanoi families actually eat, which almost no restaurant serves.
Central Hanoi • Hands-On • Air-Conditioned
Unusual Vietnamese Cooking Class Cook What Hanoi Eats at Home
Four home-style dishes you will not find on a tourist menu — caramelised pork pot with duck egg, tofu stuffed in tomato sauce — cooked by your own hands. Then pull your own Egg Coffee or Coconut Coffee to finish.
From $27 ≈ 700,000₫ • per person
About 3 hours — you pick the start
Full vegetarian menu
Recipe booklet to take home
About 3 hours
Cook, then sit down and eat
Flexible start
Any half hour, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Air-conditioned
Comfortable indoor kitchen
Meat or vegetarian
Two full four-dish menus
How It Unfolds
Three steps from the chopping board to the table
No demonstration counter, no watching someone else cook. You prepare every dish yourself, guided in English at your own pace — and the class ends the way a Vietnamese meal should, sitting down to eat what you made.
1
2
Step Two — Optional
Craft your own drink
Add the drink workshop and make one yourself: whisk an Egg Coffee, shake a coconut, build a cold brew or whisk matcha. Nineteen options across coffee, cold brew, matcha and tea.
3
Step Three
Sit down and eat
Everything comes to one table, family style, with your drink beside it. You leave full, and with a recipe booklet so you can cook the whole menu again at home.
Home cookingNot the restaurant version
Beyond the Usual Class
The dishes tourist menus never carry
Most Hanoi cooking classes teach the same three things: pho, spring rolls, bun cha. This one skips all of it. You cook the dishes that actually appear on a family table on a Tuesday night — the caramel pot, the stuffed tofu, the sweet and sour ribs — and once you have made them, you will recognise them everywhere.
An instructor, not a performer
English-speaking, patient, and at your elbow for every dish. You do the cutting, the frying and the seasoning — they explain the why behind each step as you go.
Cool, comfortable, indoors
A proper air-conditioned kitchen in central Hanoi — which matters far more than you would think in a Hanoi summer, and makes this a genuinely good rainy-day plan too.
A recipe booklet to keep
Every dish written down, with the measurements and the substitutions that work outside Vietnam. The class lasts three hours; the booklet lasts as long as you cook.
Optional Add-On
Make your own Vietnamese drink
Vietnam does things to coffee that no other country does. Add the workshop and you make one drink yourself, start to finish — whisked, shaken, brewed or steeped — and drink it with the meal you just cooked.
Coffee
Five to choose from- Vietnamese Coffee — the phin drip, done properly
- Egg CoffeeSignature
- Coconut CoffeeSignature
- Black Coffee
- Milk Coffee
- Salt Coffee
Cold Brew
Four to choose from- Traditional Cold Brew
- Apricot Cold Brew
- Berry Cold Brew
- Lemon Cold Brew
Matcha
Two to choose from- Matcha Latte
- Matcha Coconut
Tea & Specials
Four to choose from- Mint Osmanthus Tea
- Grapefruit Tea
- Roasted Milk Oolong Tea
- Wild Apricot Flower Drink
One drink per workshop place, chosen on the day. Add as many places as you like when you book — one per person, or just for whoever fancies it. Some drinks vary with seasonal availability; if yours is unavailable your instructor will suggest the closest thing on the list.
At the Table
What you’ll cook and eat
Four dishes, cooked by you, eaten together. Choose the meat menu or the vegetarian menu when you book — both are complete meals, and mixed groups cook side by side without any trouble.
Reserve Your Place
Book the cooking class
Rates are per person and cover the class, every ingredient, the meal you cook and your recipe booklet. Choose your option, add the drink workshop if you want it, and the price updates as you go — in US dollars, with the dong underneath. We confirm by email and WhatsApp, usually within a few hours. Nothing is charged to enquire.
How the class runs
There is no fixed session to fit around. Pick any start on the half hour between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM and the class runs about three hours from there — long enough to cook four dishes properly and still sit down and enjoy them.
What’s included
Included
- Hands-on Vietnamese cooking class — all four dishes
- English-speaking instructor throughout
- All ingredients and cooking equipment
- The homemade meal you prepare during the class
- Recipe booklet to take home
- Drinking water
- Hotel pickup and drop-off (on the hotel-pickup rate only)
Not included
- Hotel pickup and drop-off on the make-your-own-way rate (can be arranged on request)
- The drink workshop (optional, added when you book)
- Additional food and drinks not listed above
- Personal expenses
- Transport beyond the pickup zone (can be arranged for a fee)
- Tips for your instructor (always appreciated, never expected)
Honest, instant pricing
Pick your option and the exact price appears — in US dollars, with the dong equivalent underneath. No hidden extras, no surprises on the day.
Vegetarian-friendly, always
Tell us your menu preference and any allergies. Both menus are four full dishes, and mixed groups cook side by side at the same bench.
Hotels inside the Old Quarter and Hanoi centre are covered by the hotel-pickup rate. Staying further out? Ask us and we will quote the transfer.
Request received!
Thank you — we’ve got your cooking class request and will confirm availability, the exact address and the final price shortly.
Message us on WhatsAppGood to Know
Before you book
The menu. Most Hanoi cooking classes teach pho, spring rolls and bun cha — the dishes you have already eaten on the street. This one teaches home-style cooking: caramelised pork pot with duck egg, tofu stuffed with pork in tomato sauce, sweet and sour ribs. They are what a Hanoi family eats on an ordinary evening, and they are almost never on a tourist restaurant menu.
Yes — a full four-dish vegetarian menu, not a reduced version of the meat one: fresh vegetarian pho rolls, stir-fried tofu with mushrooms, traditional mung bean sweet soup and a Vietnamese seasonal salad. Mixed groups cook side by side at the same bench without any trouble. Vegan, gluten-free and other dietary needs can usually be accommodated too — tell us when you book so the shopping is done around them.
For $8 (≈ 208,000₫) you make one drink yourself, from the whole list — Egg Coffee, Coconut Coffee, Salt Coffee, a flavoured cold brew, matcha or a Vietnamese tea. It adds about 20 minutes and you drink it with the meal you cooked. Egg Coffee is the one most people pick and the one that is hardest to make well at home, so it is our usual suggestion. You can add places for some of your group and not others, and you can decide the exact drink on the day.
At $27 (700,000₫) per person you make your own way to the kitchen at 132 Đ. Âu Cơ, Hồng Hà — by the Red River, a short taxi ride north of the Old Quarter. At $33 (850,000₫) per person we collect you from your hotel and take you back afterwards. The pickup rate covers hotels in the Old Quarter and Hanoi centre; if you are staying further out, ask us and we will quote the transfer.
Any half hour between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM — there is no fixed morning or afternoon session to fit around, so you can build it around the rest of your day. The class runs about three hours including the meal, or nearer two and a half without the drink workshop. Add roughly 20 minutes each way if you take hotel pickup.
None at all. The instructor starts from the knife grip and works up, and everything is explained in English as you go. Confident cooks are not bored either — the caramel, the fish sauce balance and the clay pot are genuinely new techniques for most people, whatever they cook at home.
Yes, and it works well — an indoor, air-conditioned kitchen is a much easier place to bring children than a countryside tour. Children 3–5 pay 75% of the adult rate and under 3 join free; from 6 upwards they pay the adult rate and get their own station. Add their ages in the booking notes so the instructor can set the knives and the stove up safely.
A day ahead is usually plenty — the ingredients are bought fresh for your menu, so we need the morning to shop. We can often arrange something sooner; message us on WhatsApp and we will check. Booking earlier helps most in peak season, for larger groups, and if you want a specific start time.
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