One of my Christmas gifts from my boyfriend was a cooking class in Philadelphia’s Old City. Christian and I love to cook together; we make short ribs and soups, and we successfully made our first sourdough from homemade starter last week. All that is to say a cooking class was a perfect gift for me.

Chef Landi is a professional chef from Albania. He moved to Old City in 2001 to begin his career as a personal and private chef after years of training and working in southern Italy — the birthplace of Italian cuisine. Now his career consists of hosting groups of six to eight people in his home for personalized and intimate cooking experiences.

It was a Thursday evening when Christian and I met Chef Landi and two other couples also signed up to cook with us that night. The menu consisted of a Caprese salad to start, a gnocchi dish with Bolognese sauce, and crème brûlée to finish. Each couple had a station set up with a cutting board and knives. We actually began by making the custard for the crème brûlée as that would take the longest to set. We then moved on to the Bolognese sauce, the gnocchi pasta and the Caprese salad.

We sat down at Chef Landis’s kitchen table for each course with the other couples, talking about everything from our current cooking experience to pets, TV shows we were currently watching and favorite restaurants in Philly. It really was an intimate setting for six strangers, but Christian and I agreed we loved having that experience with other people who we may have never met otherwise.

My favorite portion of the class was learning some valuable knife skills from the chef, along with other techniques we could use at home. Christian was particularly good at creating each gnocchi with a special design shape using fork prongs.

Each course was obviously out of this world delicious, and the best part was we didn’t have to do any of the clean up! Our experience was around $200 per couple, including the ingredients and experience. Chef Landi also has different menus that range in price and might include seafood and other delicacies. I highly recommend Chef Landis’s class for a date night or celebration.

— Haley Fogarty, vice president of sales