Scenic Wichita farm starting new Italian cooking series led by Milan-born chef
The owner of a local wedding venue may have come up with a hard-to-beat combination for foodies and aspiring home cooks: Italian cooking classes taught by a chef from Milan (complete with Italian accent) on a scenic Kansas farm that’s visually about as close to Tuscany as Kansas gets.
Daniel Stockemer recently added two cooking classes and a Valentine’s Day dinner to the calendar at his Prairie Hill Vineyard at Stockemer Farm — a wedding venue at 3660 N. 215th St. West in Colwich that’s set up on a scenic, 20-acre former family farm. The venue sits 20 miles northwest of Wichita.
The classes will be taught, and the dinner will be cooked, by Roberto Bernardinello, a chef who hails from Milan but has been living in Wichita since 2004. Today, he makes his living as a private chef, a cooking class instructor at MarkArts, and a jazz bassist who plays regular gigs around Wichita.
Bernardinello met Stockemer’s partner, Jan Petersen, though mutual friends then got to know Dan. He’s performed with his guitar at some of the music events the couple has put on at the venue over the past few years.
Bernardinello recently approached Stockemer with an idea: What if he started offering cooking classes at the farm that would focus on Italian fare that people could easily cook themselves at home?
“My idea is not just that I’ll teach you the fun stuff,” Bernardinello said. “I’ll be teaching you how to cook for your family. People think it’s complicated, and there is a lot of French tradition in cooking, especially in schools, which is great. But it’s very complicated and very costly. I always wanted to teach instead the fact that Italian food, for the majority, is simple and fast and wonderfully delicious.”
The two cooking classes are scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 10 and Feb. 24. There will also be a Valentine’s Day-themed dinner at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 15. It won’t include instruction, but Bernardinello will do the cooking.
The classes and the dinner will be staged in one of the many houses that dot the property at Stockemer Farm. This one, just off the main stage, features a large, open main room that includes a kitchen where Bernardinello can demonstrate his recipes. People will be seated at tables facing the kitchen’s big island. Each class will have room for about 30 people.
The lessons, which will be titled “A Place at the Table,” will include wine pairings chosen and explained by Stockemer, a world traveler and wine aficionado. They’ll cost $50 for an individual or $80 for a couple, and students will eat what’s prepared.
Bernardinello said he hasn’t set the exact menu for the classes, but he plans to prepare a couple of pasta dishes — he offered penne arrabiata and penne with mushroom as examples — and will also prepare a second course, likely some sort of chicken dish. He’ll also prepare an Italian appetizer and dessert.
The Feb. 15 dinner is $81.88 a person and will include Italian salad, rigatoni with speck and artichokes, lemon chicken, and affogato al caffe for dessert.
Tickets for the cooking classes and the Valentine’s Day dinner are on sale at eventbrite.com. Links can be found on the Prairie Hill Vineyard Facebook page.
Stockemer said that he hopes the classes will continue monthly, but he wants to see how the first round goes. Last month, Stockemer and Bernardinello put on a test-run dinner filled with friends and local foodies, and it went well, Stockemer said.
Stockemer said that he and Bernardinello think that people will enjoy the education as well as the socialization the classes will offer.
“He thinks that the west side is totally unserved in this type of thing and that people will want to come to something that would be fun,” Stockemer said.
From Italy to Wichita
Bernardinello was born and raised in Milan and stayed there until he was 32. He was working in marketing for a champagne brand but realized that the corporate life was not for him.
He’d learned to play the upright bass in his 20s and really loved Latin jazz. He performed in several jazz groups in Italy and eventually decided to move to England and study jazz at London’s Trinity College.
While living in Milan, Benardinello happened to meet and befriend a couple from Wichita, and in 2004, he traveled here to visit them. On that visit, he met and then began dating a friend of the couple. He moved to Wichita that year, and the two eventually married and started a family. (They’ve since divorced.)
Bernardinello got a job teaching guitar at Butler Community College and did that from 2007 until 2024, when he had to return to Italy to care for his aging mother. During that time, he also began working with musicians in New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville and Dallas. From 2008 to 2011, he traveled with jazz saxophonist Joseph Vincelli as part of his backup band. He also released two albums: “One,” in 2010 and “Geographic National” in 2017.
When Bernardinello returned to Italy, he gave up his teaching position at Butler. And when he came back to Wichita, he decided to focus on a side career he’d built up over the years: cooking.
Bernardinello, who grew up in Italy loving to cook, found that Wichitans were interested in learning what he knew about Italian cooking. He began to get jobs as a private chef, cooking for parties of around 20.
Now, between those gigs, teaching at MarkArts and performing around town, Bernardinello is able to make a living doing what he loves. (He plays every Monday night at Los Compadres, 3213 N. Toben; every Wednesday night at Napoli, 7718 E. 37th St. North; every Friday night at the Ninth Floor Club, inside the Ruffin building at 100 N. Broadway; and every Saturday at Crestview Country Club, 1000 N. 127th St. East.)
Students who enroll in the class may get to see Bernardinello’s musical talent on display.
“He thinks the classes will take a while, but he may end up playing a song or two at the end,” Stockemer said. “That would make it even more fun.”
Stockemer’s farm, which has been in his family since 1900, has become one of the area’s most popular wedding venues. In fact, he said, every weekend in 2026 is booked with a wedding. Couples are drawn by the venue’s 12,000-square-foot event center, which Stockemer completed in 2021.
Stockemer lived much of his young life on the property but eventually moved to Sonoma County, California, where he lived for 11 years. He came back later in his life and planted a vineyard at the farm “to make it look like Sonoma County,” he said.
Several years ago, he started putting on events and inviting the public, including a Fall Harvest Festival and a music festival called Rootstock.
He said that he hopes the cooking classes will become another activity that draws people out to enjoy the property.
“I think the concept of the classes, with excellent fresh Italian food, with paired wines and a fun dessert, will be a perfect way to have an evening with your friend or with your partner,” he said.
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