Sur La Table

Fantastic cooking class at Sur La Table in SF yesterday with Chef Tony Crane. Here’s the spatchcocked chicken with fennel and potatoes and HDP, ready to go into the oven. Class: French Cooking at Home. Highly recommended! Also made French onion soup and Butterscotch Pot de Creme.

OMG this place is a cooks dream. I wanted to buy lots. I loved the autumn decor and product focus

Surprised my wife with a cake decorating class on 11/09/19. While it was eventually fun, and the staff and the instructor were quite nice, I did feel like they sorta crammed everyone into the space with little room to work with. In addition, they seem to be ill equipped with enough material and tools to work with. The instructor seem to just blow through the steps, leaving my wife and I confused. Eventually we got it and had a blast. We left our cakes so we could shop in store and around Cow Hollow. We weren't told a specific time to come back, and that we can come basically whenever (See bottom for the more issues) Visited the store afterwards and loved the warm and gracious atmosphere. The folks at the counter were amazing!! After about an hour or so of roaming around the neighborhood, we were ready to grab our cakes and head back to our Apt. The moment we walked in and asked a member of the staff in the class area, she barked at us and told us that they only hold cakes till 1pm and that have no guarantees, trying quickly to shoo us away and didn't care. Recall that we were never told when to come back or a specific time frame. That was completely rude, and added more salt to the wound of otherwise remedied visit...

The experience can be good if you make it, but the value of the cooking class wasn’t there. For that much money I didn’t expect to make chicken and potatoes, something I already know how to do and extremely cheap. Furthermore, I didn’t like being told to eat on my lap so they can clean and prepare for the next group, somewhat ushering us out as quickly as possible.

I went to Sur La Table french cooking class and was extremely disappointed. We started off cooking a chocolate soufflé as a group of 4 couples, but we were spread out far across from our work station leaving one couple to create the entire dessert. The instructor then told us that we were going to be making a potato and herb dish next which meant the instructor showed us the precut potatoes she prepared and poured the herbs she pre-made on the potatoes without anyone in the room being involved. We then asked what the herbs consisted of and the instructor said "don't worry, I prepared it before the class and you can look at the ingredients in the packet you will receive after class." Not only did she not involve us in this, but also she did not tell us how she prepared the spices. The only hands on part of this course we did was at one point the instructor asked us to cut up a shallot which we were going to use for our steaks. We chopped up the shallot and added it into a pan in front of us where the instructor would later add the pre-seasoned steak into or pan. Once again, this was prepared before class and to see how it was prepared we were to refer to the packet. Online advertised that the class would be 2-2.5 hours, however, the instructor paused the class in the middle and told everyone to go look around the store while we waited for the potatoes to cook. This break lasted for about 25 minutes. The instructor also decided to cut class 25 minutes early for us to spend additional time in the store buying merchandise. Between the break, starting late, and ending early, the class was at most one hour long instead of the 2-2.5 hours advertised. Overall, the majority of the food preparation happened prior to the class and nothing was explained to us. The only true activity I did in this class was cut a shallot and pour oil in a pan, which I could have done at home and googled the recipe (or read a packet like the instructor told us to do). I am very disappointed by this experience as I even went home hungry. We prepared one small steak per 4 people. I am very disappointed by this experience as I went home hungry (ate 4 tiny pieces of steak and a few potatoes- not enough for a meal).  I did not even learn anything despite trying to engage the instructor multiple times.

I signed up for a chocolate making class with my girlfriend (Chocolate 101), and ended up being very disappointed. We were partnered with a 3rd person who was very aggressive and wanted to do all the work herself. Paired with this, our instructor continued to use our station as the example station, essentially doing all of the interesting parts for us. We both left having done little more than pour pre-measured ingredients into the pot and stir occasionally. This would have been a sub-par experience in and of itself, but it didn't stop here. I emailed Sur La Table directly to leave this feedback so hopefully others wouldn't go through the same thing. They initially seemed receptive and apologetic, and said the store manager would give me a call to hear more about my feedback and see if they could make it right somehow. She called once during work hours when I couldn't pick up, and left a message asking me to call back. It has been a MONTH since then, and I have called back at least twice a week trying to get in contact with her. Every time she's either not in the store or busy with a class. Even after repeated attempts to get her to contact me back when she's available, she hasn't tried to call back once. I think they're hoping I get bored enough to just stop calling and figure they won't have to deal with this. I'm not trying to be difficult to deal with, it's mostly frustrating because not only was the class horrible, they acted like they wanted to help only to waste my time for a month showing no real interest in hearing what I had to say or helping out. My advice would be to skip all the classes here and take your money somewhere else that deserves it.

Customer service at this store is unparalleled. Rick and Dean were extremely helpful, offering their advise and showing discount and/or clearance items to help me save money on quality merchandise throughout the store. I ended up spending more than I planned and likely you will too. This location is quite large, with a vast and varied selection of supplies. They even offer cooking classes... I'll definitely be back. Just go. You won't regret it.

Reviewing for the cooking class here, which felt a little lame, but it was a "date night" class. I'm sad I didn't learn much and it was more of a fluff class. The store seemed nicely outfitted with serious & fluffy products, though.