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October 1st-8th 2026
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Oaxaca is a cooking school that has no walls. Its teachers are the women who press masa at dawn at the Mercado Central de Abastos. The maestro who learned to make mezcal at nine years old in Santa Catarina Minas.
A culture and Food Tour
During this season in Oaxaca, families build altars to honor their loved ones, prepare the foods that belonged to the transcended, visit gravesides and celebrate together through ritual and long-standing traditions. This isn't a tour where you observe from the outside. This is Kaelin's invitation into that world as part of their family.
upcoming DATES
October 1st–8th, 2026
February 18th–25th, 2027
PRICE
From $3,811 USD
gROUP
Our maximum is usually 12 to 14 people per tour
LAST CALL
September 1st
Explore Itinerary →
The experience at a glance
EAT
The week closes the way it opened: a seven-course dinner cooked by Kaelin, set at the school, with the people you have spent the week learning with.
cook
The week closes the way it opened: a seven-course dinner cooked by Kaelin, set at the school, with the people you have spent the week learning with.
explore
The week closes the way it opened: a seven-course dinner cooked by Kaelin, set at the school, with the people you have spent the week learning with.
In the kitchen
Cooking CLasses
Our classes at the cooking school are built on three pillars of Oaxacan cuisine: maíz, cacao and mole. Corn is the foundation and mole gathers celebratory traditions into a complex and incredible dish. Each class is hands-on and builds on the last, ending around the table with a meal you cooked yourselves.
COOKING CLASSES
Maíz
The region's most fundamental crop. We explore its history, run the full nixtamalization process, and craft traditional dishes with fresh corn masa — tortillas, memelas, tetelas, tamales. Each one has a different texture, a different occasion, a different story.
Cacao
Toast the beans, grind them on a metate, make drinking chocolate from scratch. No shortcuts. The pre-Hispanic method produces something that tastes nothing like what the word "chocolate" suggests in a supermarket. Norma leads this class. Her sister Mago bakes the bread we eat alongside.
Mole
Four moles in one session. Mole negro, mole coloradito, mole verde, and one that changes by season. Each uses different chiles, different techniques, different occasions in the Oaxacan calendar. You learn to distinguish them — not just by taste but by the logic behind each sauce.
LEARN ABOUT ARTISAN TRADITIONS
• The woven rugs of Teotitlán del Valle, made with pedal looms, follow Zapotec geometric patterns that predate the Spanish colonial period.
• Backstrap weaving with the Navarro sisters — a slower, more intimate textile tradition using ancestral motifs.
• Hand-shaped beeswax candles from Doña Viviana in San Antonino Castillo Velasco — devotional objects that are also extraordinary craft.
• Alebrijes — painted wood animal sculptures — at the studio of Jacobo y María Ángeles in San Martín Tilcajete.
MEZCAL
We visit Don Felix in Santa Catarina Minas, the heart of ancestral mezcal production in Oaxaca. His family sources wild agaves from different regions — espadín, tobalá, madrecuixe, tepeztate — each roasted in a pit and fermented in the open air. Don Felix began this work at age nine. He explains each mezcal before you taste it. Over the course of the afternoon, you taste more than 25.
This is not a tasting flight. It is a tutorial from someone who has spent a lifetime paying attention to agave.
Kaelin Ulrich Trilling
Kaelin grew up at Rancho Aurora in the Etla valley — the cooking school his mother Susana Trilling founded in 1994. He trained under Thomas Keller, staged at Eleven Madison Park and Noma’s Tulum residency, then opened Thomas Keller’s La Calenda in Napa Valley before coming home to lead Seasons of My Heart. He has been running the Discover Oaxaca tour since 2019.
He knows this place the way you know the house you grew up in.
This tour is built from relationships.
Everything on this itinerary — the mezcal session, the market stop, the artisan studios — exists because Kaelin has been visiting these people for years. It is not assembled from a brochure.
Small group. Maximum 14 travelers.
The group size is a design decision, not a capacity constraint. Smaller means you can sit with Don Felix for the full afternoon. Larger means you can’t.
Can’t travel on these dates?
We build private tours. Contact us and we’ll design something around your schedule and your group.
This tour is built from relationships.
Everything on this itinerary — the mezcal session, the market stop, the artisan studios — exists because Kaelin has been visiting these people for years. It is not assembled from a brochure.
Small group. Maximum 14 travelers.
The group size is a design decision, not a capacity constraint. Smaller means you can sit with Don Felix for the full afternoon. Larger means you can’t.
Can’t travel on these dates?
We build private tours. Contact us and we’ll design something around your schedule and your group.
This tour is built from relationships.
Everything on this itinerary — the mezcal session, the market stop, the artisan studios — exists because Kaelin has been visiting these people for years. It is not assembled from a brochure.
Small group. Maximum 14 travelers.
The group size is a design decision, not a capacity constraint. Smaller means you can sit with Don Felix for the full afternoon. Larger means you can’t.
Can’t travel on these dates?
We build private tours. Contact us and we’ll design something around your schedule and your group.
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Thursday September 10th
Welcome dinner at a celebrated restaurant in the heart of Palermo -
Friday September 11th
Explore Palermo’s landmarks, from the Quattro Canti to its world-famous cannoli. Enjoy lunch at the Capo Market before we depart for the South Coast -
Saturday September 12th
A hands-on cooking class followed by our first technical wine tasting at one of Sicily’s premier wineries exploring the DOC’s from Menfi -
Sunday September 13th
An early start for cheese-making at a local caseificio and truffle foraging with an expert mycologist. After a traditional Sicilian Sunday lunch, we’ll enjoy a tasting of Sambuca, digestifs, and local sweets. -
Monday September 14th
A guided walk through the charming town of Marsala and lunch, followed by a visit to the historic birthplace of Marsala wine at Marco de Bartoli -
Tuesday September 15th
Start the day in the ceramic-rich town of Sciacca, then visit an ancient grain mill to cook lunch with freshly ground flour. Spend the afternoon at Cantina Barbera for a tasting of their biodynamic wines.
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Wednesday September 16
Wine tasting and lunch in Caltanissetta, famous for its bold Nero d’Avola and Cerasuolo di Vittoria wines. Afterward, we head to Catania for a fun and casual dinner.
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Friday September 20
On this morning we wish you a good return home, or to your next destination!
Day-by-day Itinerary
$3,465 USD (2026) / $3,811 USD (2027)
Per person, based on double occupancy. Single supplement available.
WHAT IS INCLUDED
• 7-night hotel accommodation in a walkable Oaxaca City hotel
• All transportation to tour-related activities and excursions
• All cooking classes, market visits, workshops, and cultural visits
• Most meals and drinks — including the welcome dinner at Levadura de Olla and the seven-course goodbye dinner at Rancho Aurora
WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED
• Airfare and airport transfers
• Gratuities
• Personal purchases
NOT READY TO JOIN US YET?
Kaelin has been eating his way through Oaxaca since he was a child. He knows which stall at Central de Abastos is worth getting to before 8am. Which mezcal producer is doing something no one else is doing. Where to eat mole negro on a Tuesday when the school isn’t cooking.
He wrote it down.
→ Get Kaelin’s Oaxaca Insider Guide — free
Five market stops. Three restaurants. One mezcal producer. And the dish you should order at each one.
We’ll send it to you and add you to Kaelin’s newsletter — dispatches from Oaxaca, a few times a month. Unsubscribe anytime.
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