Plenty of resorts across the country have excellent restaurants, but travelers seeking more should explore the hands-on side of culinary resort experiences. From New York’s Hudson Valley to the South Texas Coast, adventurous food lovers can partake in workshops and experiences that get them out of the dining room and into the kitchen, garden, farm, or ocean. Whether you’re looking to forage or fish, these excursions will introduce you to local people, ingredients, and techniques, and ultimately offer a true taste of the destination.
At these properties, it’s less about what’s on your plate and more about how it got there. Big Sur is the perfect place to forage for edible botanicals and aromatics, and on Chesapeake Bay, harvesting and shucking oysters is woven into the community’s cultural fabric. Those wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of New York City can head up to the Hudson Valley for focaccia-making, while a desert oasis on the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, teaches you how to craft pasta like a pro.
No matter your level of expertise, these resort experiences are designed to connect curious travelers with an impressive network of chefs, farmers, ecologists, mixologists, and bakers. For a vacation that will also quench your thirst for knowledge, head to these exciting culinary resorts.
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Catch your own dinner
Head down to the South Texas Coast for a true catch-to-table culinary experience. Local guides at La Pesca Lodge take guests to prime spots throughout Baffin Bay, offering everything from fly-fishing and wading to drifting and sight casting. Though you’re welcome to bring your own gear, the lodge provides spinning rods, lures, and live bait if needed.
Expect to reel in an array of speckled trout, redfish, flounder, and black drum. Your catch will be cleaned and bagged for you to take back to the lodge, where chefs transform your bounty into ceviche, grilled fillets, and more. Just remember that you’ll need to purchase your own Texas fishing license in advance. Those more interested in old-fashioned hunting can partake in dove, duck, or nilgai shoots.
Learn to make pasta like a pro
The Andaz Scottsdale Resort & Bungalows is a retro, palm-tree-lined oasis with a premier spa, unique art collection, and the on-site restaurant Weft & Warp. Every Thursday, guests can beat the desert heat with a hands-on pasta class in the restaurant for $65.
You’ll learn a variety of techniques while crafting a few different pasta shapes. You might make agnolotti filled with a chive and shrimp paste; and you will also learn simpler pastas, like classic linguine or fettuccine. Once you’re done, enjoy your finished product with an optional wine pairing on the patio. If you’ve got dessert on the brain, book the Sweet Escape truffle-making workshop (hosted every Friday) and elevate your pastry skills by learning the basics of chocolate tempering.
Harvest, shuck, and slurp oysters
Virginia’s Tides Inn gives travelers the chance to live like a Chesapeake waterman for the day. This signature activity pairs guests with a resident ecologist who takes you out to oyster cages via boat for an educational experience that’s all about shellfish. You’ll haul up your own oyster cages and sort through the very best bivalves, all while learning about the region’s longstanding history with oystering and the positive impact it has on the local ecosystem. Oysters harvested during the excursion need to be refrigerated for at least 24 hours, so when you return to the inn, enjoy a shucking how-to with the previous day’s haul while sipping on local wine and beer. The Chesapeake Gold experience is a similar outing, but includes a visit to one of the inn’s very own oyster farms, meaning you get to consume the same ones you collect. Once back at the inn, enjoy them both raw, grilled, and topped with your favorite seasonings.
Set off on a tasty farmstead tour
Located in the foothills of Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, Blackberry Farm is a working estate that maintains a strong connection to Appalachian agriculture. A twice-daily farmstead tour is available all year long, giving guests an in-depth look at the heirloom gardens, heritage livestock pasture, and dairy barn. These manicured, bright green gardens create a scenic backdrop to your itinerary, which includes sampling of farmstead cheeses, cured meats, preserves, and a rotating seasonal beverage. Those wanting a more formal culinary experience can book a three-hour artisan cooking demo with a three-course educational lunch and a glass of wine to pair.
Pick your own herbs and — and put them in a cocktail
Located about an hour and 20 minutes away from Phoenix, Castle Hot Springs is a picturesque desert resort with a thriving agricultural operation. The 3-acre garden yields more than 150 seasonal fruits, veggies, herbs, and flowers, supporting a dynamic farm-to-table ethos across the resort’s Relais & Châteaux-approved restaurant, Harvest.
Start your day with a one-hour farm tour, tasting your way through a variety of crops as you learn about the fertile soils supported by the area’s natural geothermal hot springs. In the afternoon, test your skills with a hands-on mixology class using produce and botanicals straight from the property grounds.
Take your cooking skills to the next level
The Osthoff Resort & Spa is about 150 miles north of Chicago, right along the shores of Wisconsin’s Elkhart Lake. It doubles as a professional cooking school, hosting a plethora of gourmet classes fit for any season or holiday. The culinary curriculum is overseen by chef Rodney Schulz, with courses changing week to week. October’s schedule features everything from paella- and pasta-making to creepy themed cocktails for Halloween. November sees hearty soup demos and holiday pies, while December embraces a festive spirit with Christmas libations and cookies. There is plenty of hands-on instruction, and you’ll be returning home with a new set of skills that are far more useful than any souvenir.
Make a fluffy, possibly floral focaccia
Ready to hard-launch your sourdough baking era? Learn the basics with Ashley Napoli, also known as the Focaccia Flourist, at the Hudson Valley’s Wildflower Farms. This Auberge Collection property is about 90 miles away from New York City, which makes it an easy escape for city dwellers needing to touch some grass.
The focaccia workshop costs $168 per person and starts by teaching you how to care for and maintain a living sourdough starter. You then knead, arrange, and shape your loaf, topping it with herbs, onions, florals, olives, and anything you’d like before baking. This particular workshop is being offered every Sunday and Tuesday through the end of October, but the resort typically hosts some version of a focaccia class throughout the year.
Go foraging for delicious things in forests and meadows
In Big Sur, towering redwood forest meets dramatic, bluff-lined coast, creating a diverse ecosystem brimming with unique plant life. The serene 54-room Alila Ventana Big Sur is a wellness-focused resort that spans 160 acres of lush, open meadows, tree-lined trails, and shaded ravines, creating the ideal conditions for a plethora of fungi and botanicals.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the hotel hosts a complimentary foragers hike for guests, who will learn all about wild-food harvesting and spotting secret ingredients hidden within the local terrain. There’s also a year-round Foragers Cocktail class ($99), a more in-depth experience that begins with an outdoor search for various herbs and aromatics, and culminates in a mixology lesson where you craft small-batch bitters for a custom cocktail.