Tuscan Square
Main ingredients: Lots of larger schools with professional facilities offer cooking sessions to corporations looking to show their harried employees a good time. Tuscan Square, with its spacious, well-designed lower level and a ten-to-one student-to-staff ratio, is one of the few restaurants that can do so on a regular basis. The menu is fixed and showcases the zestful native cuisine that is the hallmark of Pino Luongo's eateries. The tariff is a little steep, but if the boss is footing the bill, who cares?

Signature dish: Students begin with a cocktail reception with abundant hors d'oeuvre (such as tuna tartare, assorted pizzas, and codfish croquettes) and then break into groups; some prepare a variety of mozzarella dishes for a first course while others labor over the main dish, which is usually either a seafood stew or house polpette (chicken-and-ricotta meatballs). The restaurant also offers an evening of pasta-making (papardelle or ravioli) that finishes with a dessert of tirami su.

Details: 16 West 51st Street (212-462-1001); call for schedule. Price: $115, plus the cost of alcohol, tax, and 20 percent gratuity, and an additional charge of $100 per chef. Limit, 80 students on the lower level, or 120 in the ground-floor main restaurant.

OLD-SCHOOL STYLE

There's something to be said for bureaucracy. Unlike some mom-and-pop shops, large, full-service institutions maintain set schedules and locations, possess professional-grade kitchens, and offer a varied curriculum.

The New School Culinary Arts Program
Main ingredients: Guests of the Inn on 23rd Street, a bed-and-breakfast in Chelsea, really lucked out when the New School's Culinary Arts Program began leasing the Inn's kitchen facilities; breakfast is now apt to include biscuits from Stephen Schmidt's baking class. Fairly similar to the school's former Greenwich Avenue facility (but a tad roomier), the new kitchen has a mix of home and professional equipment. The school's signature seven-foot-wide round dining table made the move, and it continues to foster a convivial atmosphere during the class meal. I took six in-house classes here and attended two off-site "behind the scenes" courses at local restaurants, one at Tropica Restaurant and the other at the Hudson River Club. The high quality of the instruction on-site was consistent, and in every class I attended, the teachers all used their own recipes. (After I spent several months researching this article, Low-Fat Sauces with Arlyn Hackett was a very handy course to have under my ever-tightening belt.)

Signature dish: In Home Entertaining: Buffet, the class learned handy tips like why to use more acidic foods for a buffet (cuts down on potential bacteria) and to squeeze lemon on cut apples (so they don't oxidize and turn brown). In How to Boil Water with Michael Krondl, I coasted through some basic grilling (vegetables and a pleasant tuna steak) and topped the meal off with a sophisticated hazelnut roll cake with coffee-cardamom whipped cream.

Course catalogue: It's hard to go wrong with any cooking class at the New School, and there are close to 200 to choose from, including the very basic (Knife Skills), the arcane (For Pumpkin Lovers Only), classic favorites (A Provençal Dinner Party), and seasonal specifics (Czech Christmas Cookies).

Details: 131 West 23rd Street (212-255-4141). Prices: About $80 for one three-hour class; about $2,500 for 25 four-hour sessions of the master-class series; food costs are separate and can range from $15 to several hundred dollars.

Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health
Main ingredients: Even if you don't know the difference between an antioxidant and a flavonoid, you'll still enjoy the nutrition- and healing-oriented classes offered here. The mainstream staff, led by Diane Carlson (a fabulous teacher), can turn discussions of aduki, Anasazi, and mung beans into cocktail-party chatter. The school's kitchens recently underwent a desperately needed stem-to-stern renovation and are now state-of-the-art. Most classes have minimal participation, but there are several each term that are totally hands-on. Students come from a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and culinary sophistication.

Signature dish: I took several hands-on classes, including Basics of Healthy Cooking, in which we prepared a surprisingly feisty and densely rich split-pea soup (without benefit of ham hocks or grand shank); in Healthy Chinese Cooking, we made a fantastic tea-and-orange-smoked salmon and crispy vegetable spring rolls with an Oriental dipping sauce; in Vegan Holiday Desserts, we made an un-cheesecake (not quite Junior's, but passable), and a succulent poached pear in pastry.

Course catalogue: The school now offers more than 50 classes each semester. Interesting and reasonably priced, they span a wide range of topics, from the esoteric (A-Maize-ing Grain) to the prosaic (No Hassle Winter Soups) to the therapeutic (Sugar Blues), and are packed with wisdom and wit (Berried Treasure; Cooking by the Seat of Your Pantry).

Details: 48 West 21st Street, second floor (212-645-5170). Prices: $25 (Staying Healthy in New York City) to $90 (a four-hour course, Harvesting the Sea's Bounty: Introduction to Shellfish) to $150 (a two-day class on soy); skeptics are advised to check out the five-course vegetarian meal, served every Friday at 6:30 p.m.; fee is $25, BYOB. Limit, 16 students for hands-on classes, 20 for partial-participation classes, 30 for lectures.

Cooking by the Book
Main ingredients: When Suzen and Brian O'Rourke moved back to New York a decade ago, they wanted to find a way to meet people. "We figured people who liked food and cooking would be nice," says Suzen. Out of that grew a cooking-class empire (with a huge chunk of their business now coming from Fortune 500 team-building exercises), but it all still takes place in the kitchen of the downtown loft they call home. Each class showcases dishes taken from a recently released cookbook. The author is always in attendance, but teaching is done by the highly trained staff. Afterward, everyone sits down to share the meal the group prepared. My only complaint is that I would have liked greater interaction with some of the authors. Depending on the night, you may get stuck with a prima donna.

Signature dish: During an evening celebrating Michele and Charles Scicolone's book Pizza: Any Way You Slice It, I made dough for calzones. The "meal" we prepared with famed baker Nick Malgieri (director of the Pastry and Baking Arts Program at Peter Kump's), promoting his book Chocolate, was worth the trip to the dermatologist a week later: supernatural brownies, chocolate and vanilla trifles, champagne truffles, chocolate and coffee pots de crème, and coconut chocolate-chip bars.

Details: 11 Worth Street, third floor (212-966-9799). Prices: $85 to $125 for three-hour classes. Limit, twenty students; more may attend, particularly for corporate events, but the overflow crowd has to kill time in the dining room, schmoozing, drinking, and nibbling on the hors d'oeuvre, until their turns come up.