Salud! Cooking School is a chain of cooking schools located inside certain Whole Foods Markets. At…read morethe time of writing this review, there are two in the Atlanta area: this location at the Whole Foods at Avalon in Alpharetta and another in Duluth/Johns Creek. I've taken classes at both locations. There are also locations in Charlotte, Memphis, and Nashville. For a friend's birthday, my friends and I participated in the class entitled "Divine Doughnuts with Dutch Monkey" on March 11, 2018. This was a doughnut-making class conducted by chefs Arpana Satyu-Burge and Martin Burge, the founders and owners of acclaimed Dutch Monkey Doughnuts in Cumming. I enjoyed the class, but it was not what I expected. At the class I participated in at Salud! in Duluth/Johns Creek, we rolled sushi: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yelps-fit-club-cmye-whole-foods-tour-sushi-making-class-duluth. Each person had a seat with their own individually portioned set of ingredients. In general, we followed, step-by-step, as the instructors in the demonstration kitchen walked us through all that was entailed in making a sushi roll, from prepping the ingredients to assembling the roll. It was very interactive and hands-on. The doughnut class was different. While it was advertised as a "hands-on" experience, the interactivity was limited to some students taking turns doing a different task in the demonstration kitchen. Therefore, this was more of a demonstration class than a hands-on class. Examples of hands-on tasks included mixing various ingredients in bowls, rolling dough, and hand-cutting doughnuts out of the dough. Most of the class time was spent watching chefs Arpana and Martin cook in the demonstration kitchen. I know a lot of cooking classes are set up in this style, sort of like watching a cooking show on Food Network or Cooking Channel, but I was expecting to be making my own doughnuts. The class cost $55 per person and lasted a little over 2.5 hours. The official class time was 2pm to 5pm. When you sign up for a class at Salud!, you must book and pay online in advance. On the day of the class, you should show up a few minutes early and check in at the Whole Foods customer service desk at the front of the store. After entering the store, the cooking class is located in the back-left, up the stairs. We were each handed a class lecture packet, a pen to take notes, an apron, and name tags. There was bottled water and snacks. The snacks included chips and dip (guacamole), a couple cheeses (e.g. brie), grapes, nuts, crackers, and toast. The class lecture packet included recipes for 2 doughnuts chefs Arpana and Martin showed us how to make: (1) cardamom cake doughnuts with apricot sabayon and (2) buttermilk cake doughnuts with lemon curd and vanilla meringue. We watched as chefs Arpana and Martin made each of the following components from scratch: buttermilk cake doughnuts, apricot sabayon, lemon curd, vanilla meringue, and almond croquant. There were only 13 students, the 2 chefs/instructors, 1 person who worked for Salud!/Whole Foods, and 4 Salud! volunteers. That meant the student to instructor/employee/volunteer ratio was very high (13:7). This was a fairly casual and intimate experience. We huddled around the demonstration kitchen, watched, listened, and asked questions. Both Arpana and Martin are soft-spoken so there were a few times when some of us could not hear what they were saying. In this case, a microphone-speaker setup might have been nice. The classroom is outfitted with video cameras and displays, but they were not in use for this class. When I took the sushi-making at Salud! in Duluth/Johns Creek, they used the cameras and displays to make it easier for the students to see ingredient prep, etc. For this doughnut-making class, I think the cameras would have been useful for several of the mixing bowls since the insides of the bowls were hard for some of us to see. After about 2 hours, the freshly-made doughnuts were ready for us to eat. They looked and tasted absolutely magnificent. These were gourmet doughnuts to a tee. Rich, luscious, and decadent. It was easy to see why Arpana and Martin have become successful. Martin finished off the lemon curd and vanilla meringue doughnuts with some blowtorch action. Arpana plated the cardamom cake doughnuts with apricot sabayon perfectly. (I think my pictures speak for themselves.) Whole Foods Allegro Coffee was served with our doughnuts. I believe normally up to 2 glasses of wine per student are served per class, but coffee pairs better with doughnuts. Thank you to chefs Arpana and Martin for conducting the class, to Shannon Marsh, Whole Foods' cooking school administrator, for organizing everything, and to the volunteers for their help. Everyone was nice. If you're interested in taking a cooking class at Salud!, be sure to sign up early because classes fill up fast. Also, grab a loyalty card. If you purchase 7 classes and you get an 8th class for free.

I'm not the biggest fan of sweets (except for my weakness: bubble tea), but I do enjoy a great…read moredoughnut every now and then. So when the opportunity to enroll in the "Divine Doughnuts with Dutch Monkey" cooking class came up as a possible way to celebrate a fellow foodie friend's birthday as a group, I agreed it was a great idea and signed up online. Since I had heard great things about Dutch Monkey Doughnuts, located all the way up in Cumming, I thought this "cooking class" would be the perfect opportunity to both learn how to make amazing doughnuts at home AND try their famous doughnuts! The class was advertised as "Hands-on" and cost $55 for a 3-hour session (actually ended up being 2.5 hours). I thought this was a steep price for a doughnut-making class (as opposed to a cooking class for a meal that would include wine), but I had incorrectly assumed that each student would be making a batch of their own doughnuts and could take some home at the end. I had never taken a cooking class at Salud Cooking School before, so I really didn't know what to expect, but I did think that I'd be making my own doughnuts. Led by Chefs Martin Burge and Arpana Satyu-Burge, married couple and owners of Dutch Monkey Doughnuts, the class size was limited to 12 students (and quickly sold out online). However, my friends appreciated that management was kind enough to allow one of our friends, a 13th student, enroll and join our class at the last minute. Upon checking in a few minutes before the class start time - 2 pm - I received a stapled packet that included recipes for the two doughnuts that would be made during this class: Cardamom Cake with Apricot Sabayon and Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Meringue. When I made it upstairs to the classroom, I received a name tag, an apron, and a pen to jot down notes in my class packet. I also noticed there were bottled waters, coffee, and a spread of healthy snacks from Whole Foods available for students to munch on - tortilla chips, guacamole, crackers, cheese, and fruit. I appreciated this in lieu of the two glasses of wine that students at meal-cooking classes receive. After putting on my apron, my fellow students and I huddled around Chefs Martin and Arpana as they began prepping the dough for the doughnuts. I noticed they asked for student "volunteers" to help prep the dough and doughnut toppings, and I kept waiting for the part of the class where all students would have the opportunity to watch and follow along as the instructors completed each detailed step. This never happened. The entire class ended up being more of a demonstration than the hands-on learning experience that I had expected. Being short in stature, I had a hard time seeing a lot of what was going on - especially when something was being mixed in a bowl or cooked on the stove. I'm not sure why, but the instructors didn't use microphones or utilize the TV screens (connected to video cameras) installed in the classroom that would allow everyone to easily see what was going on in the kitchen. At the end, when the chefs were done making the doughnuts, each student received two beautiful, Instagram-worthy doughnuts: one Cardamom Cake and one Buttermilk Cake. The Cardamom Cake doughnut with Apricot Sabayon was honestly the best doughnut I had ever had in my life! The Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Meringue was also delicious and came in at a close second best doughnut I've tasted. When the class was over, students were neither offered seconds nor the leftovers of the few dozen doughnuts that were made. It turned out this was because the volunteer assistants, the four of whom did not appear to do much during the class, were expected to take them (as a reward for volunteering). Personally, I didn't finish my second doughnut (we were about to go to dinner), so I asked if there was a small to-go box I could put it in to take home. Apparently, it isn't a common practice to take leftovers from Salud cooking classes home since no containers were available. Fortunately, one of the volunteers found some Ziploc bags, and I took my half-eaten doughnut in one. I really wish that this class had been advertised as a "Demonstration" and not "Hands-on," and I felt that the price should have been lower as a result. We literally received two doughnuts and didn't experience the doughnut-making process unless we had "volunteered" to do things in front of the class - and I'm not the type to be put on the spot in a group setting. Overall, based on my experience with this particular class, Salud Cooking School gets 3.5 stars. I really would have preferred for each student to make their own batch of doughnuts, or - at the very least - decorate their own doughnuts. I'm glad the doughnuts were delicious, and I definitely plan to make the trek to visit Chefs Martin and Arpana at Dutch Monkey Doughnuts for more of their amazing doughnuts!

WOW! What a fun experience! My work team came here for our Christmas party/teambuilding. Nobody…read moreknew what to expect. It was one of the best teambuilding events ever! The Chef and his staff were super helpful with the competition. To feel like you are on chopped or Iron chef was super cool. A great commercial kitchen. And Big Green Eggs to grill with. They had every ingredient you needed! Everything was super fresh. We ended up with a super yummy meal. My team won the competition of course! LOL. Everyone left happy. All we talked about all the next week is what we went home and thought to cook. Location is very clean with great equipment. Staff was super friendly and helpful. I will be back. I want to come again with friends and then with my family.

Such a fun spot! Took a work group for team building and it was fantastic. Great team, assistance…read morefor success and competition. Will definitely be back!

A group of us went at the end of last year. It was fun, educational and ended up being very tasty…read more My favorite part was the libations. They kept them flowing.

This is something that I would not have done... My wife (Cary) talked me into a class. We have…read moremaybe 5 under our belts now. It's a great date. Take your spouse, etc. You get together in a kitchen set up with 4 cooking stations, stove/cooktop, sink, etc. and three of four other groups of people with 2 to 4 per group. Pick your class to set your menu - great chefs teach the thing - they serve wine, cheese, snacks, crackers, etc. It's hands on cooking - lots of fun - you learn how to cook something that is generally really great to eat - then you eat it. It's like a wine tasting / cooking entertainment and a meal all wrapped into one evening. I'm thinking it was 90 bucks for the two of us and lasts maybe 3 to 3&1/2 hours.

I hired Chef Alice through Cozymeal for a 3 course meal I wanted to surprise my husband with for…read morehis 40th birthday. I, my husband and our guests were over the moon with Chef Alice's food, presentation and ability to pivot on the fly when one guest needed an unexpected food accommodation. All of the food was delicious, and her cheesecake was beyond delicious with a smooth, velvet-like texture and surprising ginger (subtle, not intense) crust -- everyone was raving about it. I would love to have Chef Alice cook for us again for another occasion. Cozymeal, you provide a fantastic service!

Chef Luca is an amazing chef. He was engaging, instructive and funny. We had a great class and…read morelearned how to make delicious pizza.

I put together a Corporate Event here in the Atlanta area for a number of Vendor Partners and…read moreCorporate Officers on September 21st. In handling a range of different logistic challenges I needed to find a capable Catering Company that would be capable of providing great food for a group of 40 people including a numerous C-level executives from large Fortune 1000 Companies. Joshua and his Team were a pleasure to work with and did a fantastic job. Very happy to recommend them and did to the group that runs the Venue for future events.

Oh my what a guy this Chef is. He knows what he is doing and teaches you exactly what he is doing…read morein the moment making you feel like his long time trainee with trust and enthusiasm to the point you feel like you already know what you are doing. His creations are on point, delicious, and extremely professional. We only did a few dishes together but I feel like I know my way better around my own kitchen way more than I used to. Thank you, Chef Joshua. For everything!

The quality is great! The empanadas I often order in bulk for parties and the cakes are sooo good…read moretoo. The staff can be warmer, they barely greet you when you walk in some days. I also think it's the younger and newer staff so to be fair they may be learning!

A business that truly cares about it's customers and continues to serve mind-blowing empanadas and…read moredesserts. The first thing that catches the eye when we enter is the bright & pleasing decor. Their shelves are stocked with an array of goodies and lip-smacking desserts that make you drool. My favorites are the Chocotorta and Spinach empanadas. Chocotorta was the perfect combination of richness and sweetness and the empanada, warm out of the oven was crunchy on the outside and cheesy on the inside. Service is quick and parking spots are plenty. I'd love to visit this Argentinian bakery once again!

Great little store for bread making supplies! Want to grind your own? They have what you need. They…read morecan grind it for you if you dont have a mill (yet).. There are lots of whole wheat berries and beens. Olive oils for all over. Many supplies in stock.

I drive almost 3 hours to this store several times a year. They always have what intend to…read morepurchase. The staff is great, very knowledgeable and they hustle. Seldom do you find customer service like this.