Set in the heart of our six-acre farm, Rancho La Puerta’s cooking school celebrates the culinary magic that happens whenever good cooks use just-picked local, seasonal, organically grown ingredients. The colors, aromas, and tastes are nothing short of amazing. This sensory experience, combined with your opportunity to cook side by side with great teaching chefs and then sit down to a fine meal you helped prepare, provides an unforgettable culinary experience.

Custom-built and opened in 2007, the 4,500-square-foot hacienda-style school is the colorful and creative home of Chef Jesús González, La Cocina’s talented teaching chef, and his staff. In addition, La Cocina regularly hosts renowned guest culinary experts, cookbook authors, and teaching chefs, including such stars of the cooking world as Deborah Madison and Patricia Wells.

Weekday classes emphasize the hands-on experience. Students gather around an immense chopping block island and work side by side with the chef and his assistants to prepare a full lunch or dinner. Conversation, questions, and laughter fill the room, along with the savory scents of garlic, rosemary, roasting peppers, cumin, and the other “Mexican-Mediterranean” flavors that characterize Chef González’s cooking style. Cooking completed, everyone sits down at long tables to enjoy the fruits of their labor, along with a sampling of wines from the nearby Valle de Guadalupe wine country in Baja California.

One or more “demonstration” classes are also offered each week. Here the chef prepares a great meal while students watch from seats arranged “theater style.” Sample tastes are offered, and everyone goes away with inspiring new skills and recipes. In addition to its organic-farm setting, the La Cocina experience includes La Tiendita (a small gift shop), tours of the garden, a culinary library, outdoor dining beside a rock fireplace (on occasion), and breakfasts prepared several times a week for Rancho La Puerta guests who are on the resort’s famous “breakfast hike.”

The feeling at La Cocina is magical… and unlike any other cooking school in North America. Bird songs drift through flower-bedecked courtyards and open-air porches and patios. Rows of organically grown fruits and vegetables are literally just steps from the door. The blue-green slopes of Mt. Kuchumaa rise above the farm and school, and its proximity provides a mystical sense of ancient traditions and the forces of nature: The mountain has been a sacred site of Native Americans for thousands of years. But most important are the friendly and delighted smiles: of our staff and—soon we hope—you!

Class Schedule

Rancho La Puerta guests have the option of taking one or more hands-on or demonstration cooking classes at La Cocina Que Canta.

Individual Hands-On Classes: 3.5 hours, $75.00*

Approximately 16 students maximum

Demonstration Cooking Classes: 2.5 hours, $35.00*

Approximately 40 students maximum

*10% Mexican tax will be added. Rates subject to change.

The La Cocina Team

La Cocina Designer and President: Sarah Livia Szekely Brightwood

Director: Antonia Allegra

Creative Chef and Head Instructor: Jesús González

Manager: Rene Gonzalez

Head Gardener: Salvador Tinajero

...and many others, including our talented sous-chef teaching staff and guest celebrity chefs.