Alicia's Cooking School In Santa Cruz: My Honest Review

Santa Cruz La Laguna, located on Lake Atitlán, is one of the quietest towns — but it makes up for its peaceful vibe with rich cultural experiences like traditional cooking classes.

Alicia's Cooking School is a little more than a cooking class, the experience is packed with meaningful cultural exchange and a glimpse into the traditional Guatemalan life.

While starting our planning for Santa Cruz, one of the experiences that stood out was a cooking class by Alicia.

There are a few other cooking classes available in the area, but Alicia's Cooking School stood out as both traditional and authentic.

Alicia's Cooking School

Location

Santa Cruz La Laguna

Duration

3 hours

Time

9AM–12PM & 2PM–5PM

Cost

$32.50 USD (Q250)

Dish Options

Pepián, Jocón, Kaqik and Subanik

Other Details

Veggie friendly, group & private classes, English translator available

Getting To Santa Cruz

We opted for the morning class scheduled at 10:00AM–1PM since our cooking teacher had this class pre-planned. Since San Pedro was our home base, we took a boat at 9:00AM.

The walk from the boat dock at Santa Cruz to Alicia's Cooking School was around 20 minutes from the dock, so that might be worth noting. One of the other students taking the class took a tuk tuk, so that's a good option as well.

Warm Welcome With Drinks

Alicia and her son welcomed us with traditional drinks: hot hibiscus tea or coffee. Hibiscus tea is locally known as Jamaica.

My travel partner was so excited to tell her that the Jamaica tea was the best she's EVER tasted. My coffee was also ridiculously rich in flavor.

Choosing A Local Guatemalan Dish

Now comes the interesting part, we choose a dish and begin the preparation. We opted for Pepián - a local dish with nuts and seeds. Our version was a vegetarian dish with tofu as a meat replacement.

This also made my travel partner do a quick happy dance since she hadn't seen tofu in a long time. The other half of our group in our class chose Jocón as their dish which is a type of stew with herbs and chicken.

Both dishes are very traditional Guatemalan dishes and are generally served only on special occasions.

Traditional Preparation Method

We kicked off the cooking class with some vegetable chopping and deleaving an interesting herb called Chipilín which is served in soups, tamales and salads. This time around, we're making some tortillas with the herb.

Alicia put us all to work and had some of us preparing the corn mix with the herbs while others chopped veggies. The colors for all the ingredients made us very happy. We had no idea Guatemalan dishes used so much greens.

For this cooking class, we also prepared tamales with the chipilín herb. The wrapping for the tamale was the same leaf from the corn plant. It can't get more authentic than that.

While chopping up and preparing the dishes, we also had a quick snack - fresh mangoes. There's nothing like ripe mangoes. Sour mangoes also pair well with some condiments which is how Guatemalans also like it.

The Big Guatemalan Lunch

After we finished cooking we sat down for the massive meal session. Everyone was beyond excited. The dishes looked & smelled phenomenal. Alicia asked us if we wanted her to serve us or make it a self-serve deal. We opted for the self-serve option of course!

There was so much food so everyone loaded up their plates and then the table went silent. The flavors in every single section of our plates were all singing to us. Our tofu pepián was sooo good. After all was said and done, I think we each had seconds or thirds. We also squeezed in tamales in our plates.

We were beyond happy at the end of the cooking class. The process was authentic, the food was bursting in flavor and we got to taste every single ingredient. It was also fun to learn more about Guatemalan culture from Alicia and her son who translated in English for some students.

Organic Ingredients

One of the things that surprised us about Alicia's Cooking School was that all her ingredients were organic.

She was very proud to inform us that there are no chemical condiments or canned ingredients in her recipes. Her sauces were all made from scratch so the sauces are all toasted, grinded and slowly cooked.

Truly Authentic Guatemalan Kitchen

Another one of the reasons we chose Alicia's class was the authentic pots and dishes she used. The pots are made from clay (Barro).

Even the mugs and cups are all made of the same material. I actually wanted one so badly! Maybe I should have asked if she could sell me one.

For the Pepián dish, we toasted the cacao nibs and pumpkin seeds which were then pulverized on the traditional rock grinder (Piedra de moler). In my country, Belize, the same traditional methods are used to prepare chocolate from cacao.

Vegetarian, Vegan & Gluten Free Options

Since we gravitate towards a vegetarian diet, we tend to choose classes that have veggie options. Alicia's class offers more than just veggie options. She also caters for vegans and those that want to keep gluten out of their diet.

Extra Services Offered

Overall, we were beyond happy with our choice to attend Alicia's Cooking School. As a bonus, she also offers a quick tour to her mother's textile shop where she shows how she weaves traditional clothes. This was passed on from generation to generation.

The short tour was done while we waited for our food to cook so that was a special treat before the bigger treat.

These are the additional tours she offers:

• Walking tours (Upon request)
• Coffee tour (Offered by her family)
• Textile tour (Included in cooking school)

About Author

Everything written on this blog is based on first-hand experience or knowledge as a local living in Belize. No fluff, just honest information.