Newport Cooks-Middletown RI
Nestled in Middletown, RI is a cooking school that teaches over 1,000 students a year. That school, Newport Cooks, was started in 2008 by Mary Weaver and her then business partner, Leonard Nihan, when they realized that Newport didn’t have a cooking school. Today, in addition to standard cooking classes, Newport Cooks hosts cooking and baking camps, birthday parties, bachelorette parties, and corporate team building events. A local book club even has a private healthy cooking class in their kitchen annually.
In its earlier years, guest chefs from some of Rhode Island’s best restaurants would hold classes at Newport Cooks. Although guest chefs are still scheduled from time-to-time, Mary, a Hospitality Management graduate and self-taught chef from having participated in so many of the classes held in the kitchen, now teaches most of the classes herself. One of the school’s signature class is a Cooking around the World series, which every month explores a new country and its cuisine.
A group of students learn to make tortellini in Newport Cooks’ Cooking Around the World: Italy class.
Another signature offering at Newport Cooks is their adult summer camp. After seeing how much their kids were learning at camp, parents asked for a similar experience. Adult camp runs from 9:00 a.m. to noon Monday thru Friday one week over the summer and is driven by the participants’ goals and interests. Last year, the focus of camp was creating hearty, healthy meals using little to no meat and whole food, plant based cuisine. Camp ends Friday with the participants pairing up and competing against each other. “We ate so well that week,” Mary recalls. “It was fabulous.”
Along with her passion for cooking, Mary is a wine aficionado, saying that “wine and food belong together.” She has been involved in wine clubs for most of her adult life and enjoys the complexities that each new growing season brings. All of the classes at Newport Cooks are BYOB, and Mary will provide wine recommendation for those that want to pair wine with their meal.
When the kitchen isn’t being used for classes, Newport Cooks doubles as an incubator kitchen. Former Newport Cooks co-owner and instructor, Deja Hart, created Rhed’s Hot Sauce at Newport Cooks and continued to make it there until she moved into her own kitchen. Chris Prescott from Broadway Dough Company, who Mary refers to as “the Pizza Guy,” also uses Newport Cooks to bake his artisan pizza dough.
After 16 years in business, Newport Cooks still has a 5-star review rating. Mary credits that to “sharing her love and passion of cooking and providing people with a positive cooking experience.” Also a factor is that classes and camps are not dumbed-down. “No Rice Krispies Treats at Newport Cooks,” Mary says.
A group of students practice proper knife skills in Newport Cooks’ Cooking and Baking Our Favorite Dishes for Children 8 – 13 Years Old class.
For more information about Newport Cooks or to book a class, visit their website https://newportcooks.com/.