Brooklyn vs Manhattan Sushi Making Classes: Which Should You Book?

Every real difference, side by side.

Both Brooklyn classes, whether you book Chef Shota's brewery session or Chef Davis's step-by-step class, run at the Wandering Barman in Williamsburg and teach the same fixed menu: a California Roll (nori, sushi rice, avocado, crab sticks, cucumber) and an American-Style Veggie Roll (nori, sushi rice, mango, avocado, cucumber). Chef Davis's class leans more step by step, walking through seasoning the rice, slicing, then rolling in sequence, while Chef Shota's keeps a slightly more relaxed, social pace. Craft drinks are available for purchase at the bar, not included in the $79 ticket, and free cancellation up to 24 hours before class gives you real flexibility if plans change.

The room itself does a lot of the work here. The Wandering Barman is a working bar with exposed brick and taps behind the counter, so the class runs with the noise level of a night out rather than a classroom. That suits people who came for the evening as much as the technique. If you are the kind of person who wants silence while you concentrate on a knife, that is a genuine mark against Brooklyn rather than a quirk we would talk you out of.

Neither Brooklyn class handles raw fish. Both rolls use crab sticks (surimi) and vegetables, which is why they work so well for guests who like the idea of sushi more than the reality of sashimi. Surimi alternatives are available on request if there is a shellfish issue at your table, and the veggie roll is fully plant-based as written, so a mixed group rarely needs to negotiate anything with the host beyond a note at booking.

One reassurance worth stating plainly: if you book as a couple or a group, you stay together at your own table for the class. The strangers in the room are the other guests around you, not the people you actually booked with, so nobody splits up your party to fill seats elsewhere.

The Midtown pro-chef workshop adds nigiri, sashimi, and temaki (hand rolls) on top of the rolling fundamentals taught in Brooklyn, plus a walkthrough of Japanese food culture and history across the extra hour. A full sushi dinner and soft drinks come included in the $125 price, so there is no bar tab to add at the end of the night.

Nigiri is the reason the extra hour exists. Rolling is forgiving, a loose roll still tastes fine, but hand-pressed rice under a slice of fish is where technique becomes visible on the plate, and it takes a chef standing at your shoulder to correct the pressure. That is also why the room caps at 20 rather than 25. Fewer guests means the chef can actually reach everyone during the part of the class that needs individual correction.

The workshop rated 4.5 from 19 reviews, and reviewers consistently single out the food-history side of the teaching rather than only the cooking. The exact fish used for the nigiri and sashimi portion varies by session depending on what the kitchen has that day, so treat that as a detail to confirm with the host rather than a fixed menu.

What does not change: it is still a beginner-friendly class, no prior experience required, and you still sit down to eat everything you made. Both sides of this comparison end the same way, with a real dinner you rolled yourself.

The $46 gap between $79 and $125 buys three concrete things: an extra hour of class time, nigiri and sashimi technique that Brooklyn doesn't teach at all, and soft drinks included with dinner instead of a separate bar tab. For two people, that's about $92 more total, which roughly covers two rounds of drinks at the Brooklyn bar anyway, so the real out-of-pocket gap narrows once you count what you'd spend on drinks in Brooklyn versus what's already bundled at Midtown.

It's worth it if nigiri and sashimi technique genuinely matter to you, or if you'd rather not think about a bar tab during the class. It's not worth it if you're strictly budget-first or you know raw fish isn't your thing, since Brooklyn's crab-and-vegetable menu covers that case by design.

Worth naming plainly: this isn't a shared-versus-private comparison, so there's no group discount that changes the math as your party grows. A group of four pays $79 times four at Brooklyn or $125 times four at Midtown either way, the per-person price stays fixed regardless of how many people book together. The only thing that shifts with group size is how much the shared bar tab or shared tip gets split, which is where Brooklyn's lower base price compounds into real savings for a bigger group.

Before the differences pull your decision around, it is worth seeing how much of the evening is identical in both boroughs. The core lesson, the meal, and the beginner-level pitch do not change with the price.

Read that table before the price one. It is the honest answer to the most common version of this question, which is really "am I missing out if I book the cheaper class?" On the fundamentals, no. The $46 buys additional technique on top of a lesson that is already complete, not a fix for something Brooklyn leaves out.

Brooklyn feels like a social night out that happens to include a cooking lesson, exposed brick, a working brewery, a livelier room of up to 25 people. Manhattan feels more like a structured lesson with a professional chef, smaller at 20 people, with more one-on-one correction during the nigiri and sashimi portions. Neither vibe is better, one suits a group of friends out for the evening, the other suits someone who wants to leave with a fuller skill set.

Both are genuinely beginner-paced, so depth here means how much technique you leave with, not how hard the class is. Someone who's never held a sushi knife handles either room fine; the real question is whether you'd rather spend the extra hour on more skill or spend it back at the bar with a drink in hand.

The Brooklyn classes are a 10-minute walk from the Montrose Ave L stop, an easy trip from most of north Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. The Midtown workshop sits at 325 W 37th St, a short walk from Penn Station, which makes it the simpler pick if you're coming from New Jersey, Long Island, or anywhere the LIRR or NJ Transit already lands you.

Both venues are wheelchair accessible, and both classes ask that you arrive about 10 minutes early to check in and get settled at your station before the briefing starts. Neither location requires anything unusual to bring, everything you need is already at your seat when you arrive, so travel time is really the only logistics question worth planning around ahead of the day.

Budget the travel time honestly on a weeknight. Getting to Williamsburg from Midtown means the L, which can be slow in the evening, and the Brooklyn classes ask you to check in about 10 minutes before the start. Coming the other way, Penn Station to 325 W 37th St is a walk of a few minutes, which is why the Midtown workshop is the easier pick for anyone arriving into the city on the day of the class rather than starting from home.

If someone asked us tonight, most couples and first-timers should book Brooklyn. The $79 price, the social brewery setting, and the free 24-hour cancellation make it the lower-risk choice for a fun evening, and the meal at the end is just as real as Midtown's. We'd only point someone toward the $125 Midtown workshop if nigiri and sashimi technique specifically matter to them, or if the non-refundable policy genuinely doesn't worry them because their date is locked in. For the date-night angle specifically, our date night guide goes deeper on which venue fits that occasion best.

We say this knowing we teach both classes ourselves, there's no incentive on our end to push one over the other, both are booked through the same page. The honest answer really is that most people are happy with the cheaper option, and the extra $46 only earns its keep for a specific kind of traveler: someone who wants to walk out knowing how to make nigiri, not just a roll.