The Fabrizio Tuscan Estate™

Join Fabrizio and his family, along with Chef Cati, for a fun-filled Kids & Family Cooking program designed exclusively for families at the farmhouse property in the heart of Tuscany. Kids love his country farmhouse, where they will learn to roll out pasta, make pizza, gelato and desserts and can go horseback riding too!!!  Experience the delights of this family hands-on cooking program, while visiting the Leaning Tour of Pisa, a Tuscan outdoor market and a famous gelateria, ice cream maker too!  Children and teens are grouped according to age.

As featured in Summer 2022 – Click here to read more!

Set on a working vineyard and olive orchard, the property is surrounded by the rolling green Tuscan hills and offers a gorgeous swimming pool and horseback riding area. The private villa has recently been restored, preserving its old-world charm while adding modern comforts such as air conditioning, and private bathrooms.  It’s a fun-filled authentic cooking experience designed for families and children that guests will never forget!

The estate has a vast olive grove and an organic vegetable garden where guests can pick their own tomatoes, eggplant, squash flowers and a bounty of seasonal produce, and  in season, pick the olives and watch them be pressed into extra-virgin olive oil.  Families are invited to explore the gardens and pick the fruits and vegetables which are then used in the cooking classes. This is a great opportunity for kids of all ages to experience Mother nature and learn about the origins of homegrown produce in the heart of the Tuscan countryside.

Join Fabrizio for a Kids Cooking Week!

Learn how to make pasta and pizza in hands-on cooking classes with Fabrizio, Chef Cati and family.  During the cooking classes, everyone will mix and roll out the dough, make pizzas, pasta and gnocchi, while learning about the healthy Mediterranean diet.  After you have chopped and diced sweet tomatoes, zucchini and porcini mushroom, you will  make delicious pasta sauces, like pesto, pumpkin or mushroom – along with pizza toppings too.  You will also prepare Tuscan desserts, such as crostata, fruit pie, cantucci, Tuscan cookies and gelato, creamy ice-cream.  Gelato making is included at the villa with a delicious tasting to follow.  Following each cooking class, everyone enjoys the food prepared in class together at our table. A toast of local red or white wine for adults and soft drinks for children and water are included.

When you are not cooking, relax in the garden, take a bicycle ride through the Tuscan hills or go for a swim in the property swimming pool (weather permitting).  You may also take a ride or hire a car and visit Vinci, home of Leonardo da Vinci and the da Vinci museum. This museum features the artist’s creations showcasing everything from his drawings on the human anatomy to mechanical clocks and flying machines.

Cooking Lessons & Market Tour

Experience the delights of the traditional Tuscan lifestyle, while attending fun-filled Kids & Family cooking classes and excursions with Fabrizio. You and your family will learn to prepare antipasto, homemade pasta and pizza, a main course (meat, fish or vegetarian) and dessert in each class – including a Tuscan market tour with tastings and a stop at a famous ice-cream shop with tastings.  Wine for adults and soft drinks for the children are included.

The Kids and Family Cooking classes, held in the villa’s country style kitchen (in what used to be one of the family’s historic wine cellar), feature traditional recipes showcasing Tuscan cuisine.  You will be making Tuscan classics such as:  tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms & pepolino, artichokes and tomatoes stuffed with herbs and cheese; gnocchi in ragù; Chianti Etruscan sauce and beans all’uccelletta;  cantucci, traditional almond cookies with Vin Santo for the adults, tiramisù, or schiacciata all’uva, a Tuscan cake with red grapes and rosemary – to name a few!!!

You will also learn the secrets of making pici, very thick spaghetti.  When in season, we will make gnocchetti verdi di patate con pomodorino fresco e basilico, green potato gnocchi with fresh tomatoes and basil, filetto d’orata al gratin di patate, fish with potato gratin, and semifreddo alle nocciole con cioccolato fondente, ice cream cake with dark chocolate and hazelnuts. If you prepare seafood, Fabrizio has his family recipe of seafood risotto and if you love meat, then there is his recipe for tenderloin with black truffles, porcini mushrooms.  This is just a sample of Tuscan cuisine depending on the season.

Also included is a visit to the vibrant outdoor marketplace.  You will soak up the scent of just-baked bread, artisan cheese, while seeing the morning picked produce from the nearby rolling hills.  Listen to the sounds of sellers calling out their daily catch, prime cuts and specials.  Shop along rows of passionate purveyors who keep the farm-to-table food philosophy alive.  Following the market visit, Fabrizio stops at our famous ice cream maker, for a visit and tasting.  Tastings included.

Tuscan Villa Accommodations

The private villa has recently been restored, respecting its old-world charm, while adding modern comforts. Set on a working vineyard, the property is surrounded by rolling green Tuscan hills twenty-five minutes outside of Florence.  The estate has a vast olive grove and an organic vegetable garden, which produces beautiful olives, tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini and a bounty of seasonal produce. Guests are invited to pick the fruits and vegetables, which are then used in the cooking classes.

The accommodations are large apartments and oversized superior rooms, traditionally furnished and newly renovated with modern conveniences including air conditioning. Each room has a private bathroom, telephone, full kitchenette, refrigerator, satellite TV, wifi, and a private garden or spacious terrace.

Step outside your door and into a colorful garden with a caffé terrace for dining, reading or painting. There is an outdoor wood-burning brick oven for our pizza making class, an over-sized swimming pool and terrace on the property grounds. Majestic Murgesi horses are bred on the premises. If you like to ride, let us know and we will arrange for horseback riding. Bikes are available at the property for peddling through the Tuscan countryside.

Breakfast is served daily In the farmhouse’s spacious dining room and outdoor terrace where you will enjoy your Tuscan breakfast featuring artisan breads, salumi, ham, artisan cheese, homemade jams, biscotti and cakes baked each morning. Traditional Tuscan lunch or dinner is also available; reservations must be made in advance.

Family-style suites and apartments are also available upon request.

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Itinerary~ 8 Days, 7 Nights

Day 1: Check-In and Welcome

• Check in, relax. Welcome and enjoy your Prosecco for parents and soft drink children. introduction.  Explore property, visit the horse stables or play  a game of soccer.
• Welcome Dinner featuring a full course Chef’s Tasting Menu with antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce, main course, dessert and the property’s wine included and soft drinks for children.

Day 2: Tuscan Market Tour & Cooking Class 2

• Breakfast is served.
• Morning visit to the local Farmers’ Market. Fabrizio takes you to the local outdoor market, where producers and farmers display their vegetables, fruits, fish, artisan cheese, meat, fish, olive oil and artisan leather goods, linens, wooden cooking tools – to name a few – for sale. Piled high are baskets of the season’s freshest produce. Select the ingredients that will be used in class while Fabrizio shares tips on how to pick out the freshest fruits and vegetables.
• Lunch is on your own.
• Afternoon, your hands-on cooking class 2. Tie on your apron preparing a full course menu featuring antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce, main course, and dessert with wine included by lunch with the property’s wine and soft drinks for children included.

Day 3:  Vineyard and Cantina Tour with Wine Tasting & Pizza Making Class 1

• Breakfast is served.
• In the morning, you will have an introduction and overview of your cooking week.
• Following, join Fabrizio for a visit to the family vineyard, olive grove and cantina. Walk the hills of the Chianti grape vineyard with Signor Fabrizio, an award- winning wine maker. He will explain the importance of the pure soil, cultivating techniques and history of the Chianti prized grapes, biodynamic farming, harvesting and bottling. Next everyone will walk under olive trees as he will explain the seasons, harvest and history of the ancient fruit first brought to Italy by the Greeks. At the end of the tour, a wine and olive oil tasting is included with his award-winning wines in the cantina and olive oil from the farm.  Taste and enjoy limited edition wines and olive oils from the property.
• Enjoy lunch if you like at the villa, not included.
• In the evening, Pizza Making Class 1.  Tie on your apron and learn how to prepare Italian pizza.  Start by kneading then rolling the dough.  Learn interesting technique on how to make the perfect pizza with your chef, following by cooking the pizzas in the wood-burning brick oven.
• Dinner follows and includes the pizza and dessert that were prepared in class with the property’s wine and soft drinks for children included.

Day 4: Gelato Making Tasting Party & Cooking Class 3

• Breakfast is served.
• Take the morning on your own to explore the family vineyard and olive grove.  Explore the land that grows the Chianti grapes and walk under groves of ancient olive trees producing the prized Tuscan olives. You may also take a bicycle and go for a spin through the Tuscan countryside.  Fabrizio also raises prized horses on the property.  You can ride with the comfort with the professional resident horse trainer rider.
• Tie on your aprons and learn how to make gelato.  Mix, blend add your favorite fruit and make Italian gelato.  Following the preparation, everyone enjoys tasting the different flavors made in the gelato making class.
• Lunch is on your own, and may be ordered at the property.  Lunch not included.
• Later in the afternoon, tie on your aprons for cooking class 3.
• preparing a full course menu featuring antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce, main course, and dessert with wine included by  dinner with the property’s wine and soft drinks for children included.

Day 5: Excursion Through The Tuscan Hills & Pisa

• Breakfast is served.
• Following breakfast, enjoy your excursion through the Tuscan Hills and Pisa famous for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, in a private car with our driver.  Visit Pisa, tour the town and church, if you would like.
• Lunch is on your own.  Your driver will share with you our favorite Tuscan trattoria if you opt for lunch.  Following lunch, return to the property.
• Afternoon free, you may choose to add-on to your excursion to visit the Tuscan towns of Siena, home of the Palio horserace which is held every year, or to San Gimignano, town of Medieval towers.
• Evening free and dinner is on your own.  You can opt to dine at the property or at anyone of the nearby trattorias.  Dinner is not included.

Day 6: Free Day or Discover Florence – Add On Option

• Breakfast is served.
• Following breakfast, you can add on a day to Florence with our driver who will take you to Florence, Italy’s City of Art.  While in Florence, explore the city, enjoy a famous gelato, and visit any one of the landmarks that the City of Art has to offer.
• The Accademia Museum & The Uffizi Gallery.  The Accademia is home of Michelangelo’s David and the Uffizi Gallery is filled with collections of the Medici Family.
• The Duomo, the distinctive icon in Florence’s skyline is the dome of the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The building, located due north of Piazza della Signoria, was begun by the sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296. Numerous local artists continued to work on it during the following century and a half. The painter Giotto designed its sturdy bell tower (campanile) in 1334. The Duomo’s octagonal cupola (1420-36), which dominates the city, was the creation of master architect and sculptor Filippo Brunelleschi. Opposite the cathedral stands The Baptistery; the building dates from the 11th century but is a Roman monument dating back to 1330; 1401-52. The third pair of these doors, by Lorenzo Ghiberti, were of such rare beauty that Michelangelo christened them the “Gates of Paradise.”
• Though, this cathedral was begun in the Gothic style by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1296, in 1366 the City of Florence, following the advice of certain painters and sculptors, decided that the Gothic style should no longer be used and that all new work should follow Roman forms, including an octagonal dome spanning 42 meters, to be built at the east end of the nave. The dome was not built until the early 15th century, when in 1415, Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and sculptor, prepared a design for the dome. He daringly proposed to construct the dome without the aid of formwork, which had been absolutely necessary in all previous Roman and Gothic construction. He built a 1:12 model of the dome in brick to demonstrate his method and the design was accepted and built under his supervision from 1420 to 1436.
• Brunelleschi was hailed as the man who “renewed Roman masonry work,” and the dome was established as the paragon of built form.
• Lunch and dinner are on your own.  Cooking Vacations provides suggestions to their favorites.
• A private guided City Tour or Food Lover’s tour with an English-speaking guide is available upon request.   Guide and museum tickets – no waiting in line – are available upon request.
• Enjoy dinner on your own in Florence or return to the property and opt to order dinner at the property.  Dinner is not included.

Day 7: Cooking Class 4 & Countryside Afternoon

• Breakfast is served.
• Following breakfast and later in the morning, tie on your aprons for cooking class 4 preparing a full course menu featuring antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce, main course, and dessert with wine included with lunch following.  Everyone enjoys the food prepared in the cooking class with the property’s wine and soft drink for children included.
• In the afternoon, relax by the pool, read a book or ride property’s E-bikes through Tuscan countryside.
• Evening is free and dinner is on your own.  You can opt to dine at the property or the near by trattorias not included.

Day 8: Departure & Arrivederci!

• Breakfast is served.
• Departure transfer to the Florence Airport or Train Station.
• Ciao and a presto!