Tagliatelle Masterclass – Fresh Tomato
The full ritual · fresh tomato + gelato with balsamic
€150 per person
Our story · Como · Lake Como
The tradition behind our Como cooking class
Sfoglia is egg pasta rolled entirely by hand with a wooden rolling pin, on wood, the Emilian way. No machine, no shortcut: flour, eggs and a gesture you can only learn from someone who owns it. Almost everywhere today, pasta is made with rollers and cranks. The people who can still hand the sfoglia down as it deserves are few, and what they guard feels less like a recipe and more like a heritage.
Here is where the discipline of our cooking class in Como comes from: a tradition, a teacher, a method.
Sfoglia is not learned from books. It is handed down — from those who have rolled it by hand for a lifetime to those who will roll it tomorrow.
I Custodi della Sfoglia fatta a Mano — the mission of the Accademia della Sfoglia
Rina Poletti, the queen of sfoglia
Rina Poletti was born in Finale Emilia in 1951, in the heart of the land where sfoglia is a mother tongue. In 1979 she opened La Bottega della Sfoglia and led it for over thirty years, until 2008: every morning the wooden board, the eggs, the rolling pin, and a dough that — under the right hands — relaxes and breathes. That is where her name became a teacher’s name.
In 2006 she won Miss Tagliatella, then again in 2007 and 2008; from 2009 she has presided over its jury. People call her the queen of sfoglia, but the title that fits her best arrived in 2018, when she founded the Accademia della Sfoglia, where she serves as didactic director: the first itinerant school devoted to the art of the matterello, created to guard and pass on hand-rolled sfoglia — I Custodi della Sfoglia fatta a Mano, the Guardians of Hand-Made Sfoglia.
With that mission she has taught across Italy, Israel, Austria, France, England, Germany and the United States, collaborating with ALMA, the International School of Italian Cuisine, with Slow Food Italia and with Il Cucchiaio d’Argento. She gathered gestures and memory in the book RINA. Ricette e Storie di una Maestra Sfoglina, and she campaigns for the craft of the sfoglina to be recognised as cultural heritage. Because a hand-rolled sfoglia is not just a technique: it is the worn wood of a board, the honest weight of a rolling pin, a knowledge that exists only as long as someone hands it on.
Our training at the Accademia della Sfoglia
Our resident chef completed the Accademia della Sfoglia’s professional path, the Sfoglia Masterclass: the training through which Rina Poletti’s school passes the craft to those who will teach it in turn. Not a certificate to hang on a wall, but a discipline to bring to the work bench, every single time.
What does that change, concretely, in a class in Como? It changes the panetto, kneaded to exactly the right point and not a minute before. It changes the rest, which is not endured but respected: that is when the gluten relaxes and the dough turns docile. It changes how you read the dough: learning to recognise, from the surface, the elasticity, the scent, what a properly rested dough is asking for. And it changes the matterello: the sfoglia is rolled with the weight of the body and with patience, not with force, until it reaches that fine translucence no machine can give back.
It is the difference between a lesson for tourists and a real cooking class: we teach the latter, in sessions of up to 12 guests, in English, French and Italian.
The method, in short
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The panetto
Flour and eggs on the wooden board: everyone kneads their own panetto, to exactly the right point.
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The rest
Wrapped in film, the dough relaxes. While it rests, the demonstrations continue at the bench.
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The sauce
Prepared in front of you, with simple ingredients treated with respect.
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The aperitivo
While the dough finishes resting, everyone gathers around a board of cured meats and cheeses.
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The sfoglia
Our resident chef shows how a sfoglia is rolled with the matterello; then everyone rolls their own and cuts it.
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At the table
You cook and eat what you made, with local wine at the table (one bottle for every four guests) and, for dessert, gelato with 25-year-aged Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP from Acetaia del Cristo.
Choose your masterclass
Five families of classes, one tradition: every masterclass starts at the wooden bench and ends at the table, with the aperitivo of cured meats and cheeses, local wine and dessert included.
Dessert: gelato with 25-year-aged Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena DOP
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