Zanzibar Spice Kitchen: Cook, Taste, & Explore Island Flavors

We booked the spice tour and cooking class combo. The spice tour itself was great—Musa explained each plant clearly and made the experience fun. The cooking class, however, was disappointing. Instead of actually learning recipes or techniques, we were asked to chop vegetables and scrape coconut while the main cooking happened by the women running the class. The women running the kitchen didn’t engage much besides giving very basic instructions through out translator, so the experience felt disconnected. Just felt like we payed to help prepare our lunch as opposed to really learn about the food. The food however did end up being delicious! We were also expected to tip multiple people and purchase items at several stops without advance notice, which was frustrating since we ran out of cash by the end. Overall: do the spice tour, skip the cooking class, and bring several small bills for tips.

A must do tour! Amazing experience starting with the local market tour, then learning a lot about the spice farms and get a chance to taste everything. Our tour guides were amazing! We cooked together a Swahili dish using everything we bought from the local market and the spices from the farm. Unbeatable experience!

Is not a cooking class is more watching them cooking. My driver did the best he could since when we walked in the “chef” said she had a headache and he was a good cooker. The food was good and I know he was trying so I feel bad for him. Hygiene could have been a lot better! Spice tour was really good. They explained it everything and were nice.

I loved that this was a no frills but genuine experience. We cooked like locals, preparing food on the floor and on coals. Foid was delicious. The spice farm was lovely and we had fun guides. The vehicle was considerable and safe. The trip to the markets was made fun with our local guide. Overall, really smooth!

This was a nice gateway activity to do with friends we cooked at a local family home and we all ate together. Worth it and we will return again

Taking this cooking class here in Zanzibar was a good way to connect to the culture. Our host was sweet and welcoming. and we learned to make traditional dishes like chapati

Our cooking guide was really friendly and made the experience enjoyable. Africa is a beautiful place, and this hands-on cooking session added something special to the trip. Highly recommended!

The cooking class in Zanzibar was such a fun experience! Our guide was really nice and patient, helping us make some tasty local dishes step by step. We loved getting hands-on and learning something new. Definitely a highlight of our trip!

Rashed and Lutfia were amazing! We met up with Rashed in front of the old fort. He gave us several options for the food we would prepare. Once we decided on the meal he guided us through the market and talked us through everything we would buy. Once we had the ingredients we had a guided tour of the spice farm where we got to try many of the different spices raw. After the tour Lutfia guided us through the cooking class and everything came out wonderfully! Would recommend to anyone who enjoys food and would like to learn more about the local cuisine!

This was hands down one of the best experiences i had in Zanzibar! my guide picked me up, from the meeting point, and we went to the market to shop for the ingredients, later we headed towards the farm, and cooking. Walking through the farm, learning about the spices was really cool. was an experience like no other. The guides were knowledgeable and made it fun with demonstrations. The cooking class was really amazing. I got to learned how to prepare traditional Swahili dishes from scratch using fresh, local ingredients, which we got from the market, The handson approach made it even more special.