Photo by Amy De La Hunt
Photo by Amy De La Hunt
Before opening Fennel Cooking Studio (3043 Olive) in early September, chef Jackie Price spent years honing her skills at Saint Louis University’s Department of Nutrition and Dietetics. Today, she’s teaching hands-on skills to the public in a newly renovated space just down the street from her alma mater. The bright, inviting culinary studio can accommodate up to 16 students per class at four stations that feel like a cross between a chemistry lab and a dinner party. Price specializes in vegetable-forward, seasonal dishes with a Mediterranean flair, using recipes that she develops herself. The grand opening happens Friday, September 29, from 6–9 p.m., when the school will offer drinks, snacks, special merchandise, and deals on cooking classes or gift cards. Here’s what to know before you go.
The Atmosphere
As soon as participants walk in the door, they’re immersed in a welcoming vibe, thanks to visuals from local designer and author Caitlin Metz. “They do a lot of illustrations and write illustrated books,” Price says. “They’re very minimalist and work mostly in black and white—and I wanted blue and green and a rainbow. I think I challenged them,” she says with a laugh, “but the branding is an embodiment of my personal style.”
The four stations where students work are the centerpiece of the room, which is located in what used to be the dining room of a sushi restaurant. It’s been completely transformed: The walls around the kitchen were removed, drop ceilings torn out, wiring replaced with floor outlets at each station for such appliances as blenders and tabletop induction burners. The exterior wall is lined with open shelves displaying all of the gear that students will need, from gleaming silver stock pots to avocado-green mixers.
Photo by Amy De La Hunt
The whole-group instruction happens at the rear, a step higher than the classroom to make it easy for everyone to see. Price positions herself at a large demonstration table where she explains techniques and preps items that the students won’t be working on. Participants can even bring chairs closer for a better look.
Occasionally, students will ascend to the ovens and gas range along the rear wall for tasks such as searing meats. Price was strategic about the choice of appliances. “I wanted professional-grade equipment that wouldn’t break and was ready for a high volume, but I also wanted the pots and pans to feel like what’s in our homes, so people can translate the skills directly,” she says.
Because the classes are hands-on and broken down into groups of four or even two people, Price can accommodate a range of experience levels. “Teaching beginner-level students appeals to me because there’s so much opportunity to make things more accessible, easier, and more approachable,” she says. “I love seeing people progress and grow.”
It’s a love that she discovered while teaching undergraduates at SLU, where she honed her inherent knack for pacing her instruction so students feel fulfilled but not overwhelmed.
At the start of each class, she prompts participants to share what brought them to Fennel. One young man at a scone class shared that he'd never baked anything in his life. She remembers asking, “Not even cookies?” After his successful attempt at scones, she could see his newfound confidence.
Price loves that parents have already started giving their students at nearby universities gift certificates for the cooking school. “It’s something that’s fun, but it’s also a life skill,” she says. “I want people to feel inspired and excited.”
To that end, the business also sells starter pantry ingredients, such as olive oil and spices, along with fun utensils and branded merchandise.
The Menu
While attending Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, Price expanded her culinary acumen in Florence, Italy, where she studied and worked in a restaurant. That experience kindled a lifelong love of Italian foods, such as pasta and risotto, which featured prominently in her first month’s class menus, in such dishes as apple cider risotto (Seasonal Cooking: Cooking with Local Apples) and fettuccine with lemon-ricotta sauce (Homemade Pasta).
Photo by Amy De La Hunt
As she was testing the Fennel concept—often in the large kitchen at the Airbnb upstairs from the cooking school’s current location—she noticed that “people are really interested in what they can do with local produce and meats in seasonal cooking,” she says. Thus, she puts her background in recipe development to good use, changing the menu monthly to reflect what’s in season.
Many of the dishes are vegetable-forward or can be tweaked to accommodate vegetarian and vegan diets. “I love talking about vegetables because friends have told me they hated them growing up and they still hate them now,” Price says. “I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got this!’”
Farmers’ market classes have already proven to be Fennel’s most popular offerings. For September’s class, for instance, the menu includes late-summer and early-fall ingredients such as sweet corn, peppers, eggplant, and delicata squash. A highlight is seared chicken thighs with sweet corn purée and herb salad. Searing lightly spiced and herbed skin-on, boneless chicken thighs is one of Price’s favorite preparations. The reason—which she shares with students—is that the crispy browned skin looks beautiful and the meat cooks more quickly and is easier to eat without the bones. Such tips are a key feature of all her classes.
The Team
The cooking school is the product of Price’s master’s degree in nutrition and culinary entrepreneurship from SLU. She moved here from Washington, D.C., to start her graduate studies eight years ago. Although she loved teaching classes at SLU, she always thought of herself as a chef, not a professor. “I loved the food scene here,” Price says. “It seemed really communal. People helped each other out and knew each other.”
Today Price is part of that supportive ecosystem. She's benefitted from the paths of fellow female entrepreneurs such as Jenny Hill at Yes Honey Studio and Sophie Mendelson and Martha Bass at Sugarwitch. In fact, Price connected with many of the people she employs as class assistants through Sugarwich’s network. They include both back- and front-of-the-house employees—and both tell Price that they appreciate the hands-on experience as much as the students do. “It’s fun for the back-of-the-house people to have face-to-face time to share their passion for food directly on an extended basis,” Price says. “And servers feel their interactions are less transactional.”
Price is intentional about extending hospitality to groups who may feel marginalized in other settings. “I work really hard to make sure this is a welcoming space,” she says. “As a queer business owner with a lot of queer employees, it feels really important to me that this is an accepting place where people can walk in and learn something. They don’t need to have any skill level to come to classes.”
In the future, Price plans to work with local chefs to bring St. Louis favorites to the masses. She says chefs often want to share their techniques and concepts but don’t know where to start with home cooks. “That’s where I come in,” she says. “Translating dishes into approachable recipes that are hands-on is one of my biggest skill sets.”
