Chef At Home

Karl’s Chef at Home cooking class is truly something special. His classes are by nature small, since he holds it in his own home kitchen, so it felt more like a private cooking session with a chef than a cookie-​cutter class. My boyfriend and I were lucky enough to have a private session with him and we ended up staying almost 4 hours cooking, eating, and chatting.
The format of the class is refreshing compared to other cooking classes. For one, you get to bring mystery ingredients (we brought greek yogurt and avocado), and Chef Karl will decide the menu based on what you brought and what’s in his pantry (the options are vast!). Secondly, you do all the cooking — Chef Karl is a great teacher and rather than tell you what the ingredients in a dish should be, he asks your opinion of what might go well and brings your suggestions into the dish. As an amateur cook, I actually felt like I was learning something I could takeaway and recreate at home.
With our ingredients, we made a delicious chilled avocado soup with pomegranate juice, lemon juice, and some spices. Then, we created pork meatballs reduced in red wine topped with pink sauce, which is greek yogurt mixed with chili spice (our favorite). For our main, we did lightly breaded fried rabbit Harlem-​style and braised bok choy. Finally, we ended with a bananas flambee using greek yogurt instead of ice cream for a healthy option. Chef Karl provided a beautiful Chianti with our meal and gave us our leftovers to take home. An all in all wonderful evening. Would highly recommend!

My girlfriend and I just did chef Karl’s improv cooking class and had so much fun. The evening was inventive, relaxing, incredibly tasty, and well worth the cost. We learned some really great tips and tricks and became more courageous in our cooking.
The layout of the evening was each person brought 2 ingredients. We and another couple showed up to creatively whip something together. Chef Karl quickly arranged the menu with our selected items and we began cooking, ending up with a delicious 5-​course meal paired with some fantastic wine.
It turned out to be a great date night for us; we’re in the midst of planning our next class with him.
Highly recommended.

I first got exposed to Chef Karl’s wonderful creativity at fusion on the fly parties in San Francisco. On a recent visit to New York I had a chance to get together with Chef Karl to create a unique meal together. He can do amazing things to bring out flavor using relatively simple ingredients. What I remember most about our New York meal was this chicken dish — we stuffed sweet sausage under the skin of the bird and rubbed with cumin, cinnamon and oregano and grilled it. The dish was an amazing mixture of flavors. I’ve never had anything quite like ti before. Also on the menu was a tomato and feta salad and a flat bread. He’s a cooking coach. You learn to let go of your fear of food and your expectations about what an ingredient should be. I am a more adventurous and better cook as a result of my cooking with Chef Karl.