Real cooking might be about following your heart but it doesn't hurt to get tips from the experts. Here are six cookery courses worth signing up for, from Andalusian to Venetian cuisine.
The venerable London cookery school, Leiths, has taught many of the most illustrious names in food including BBC Saturday Kitchen chef Matt Tebbutt and Ukrainian food writer and activist Olia Hercules. For those who have less dizzy aspirations, its day courses offer plenty of hands-on cooking peppered with the kind of culinary tips that can make all the difference. A Venetian day course (no gondolas here) included prawns alla bursara and bigoli with duck ragu and a demo of an ambrosial zabaglione. The food is prepped to take home to eat with lots of tasting during the cooking.
leiths.com, £165/$170
Where better to fine tune your fish skills than Padstow, Cornwall, home of international TV star and chef Rick Stein whose name has become synonymous with fish cookery in the UK. It seems like he owns a good chunk of Padstow with a number of desirable shops, cafes, restaurants, even covetable shepherd’s huts attached to his Cornish Arms pub. The cookery school runs half and whole day fish and seafood courses, with mesmerising views over Padstow’s harbour. Get useful tips on how to steam scallops fleetingly and serve in the shell with a ginger, soy, sesame oil and spring onion dressing. You can also learn how to fillet gurnard with confidence and use a temperature probe to gauge exactly how long it should be cooked.
rickstein.com, half day course: £95/$115
Utterly delightful, intimate cookery class with Canadian born Rosa Jackson that starts with an insider’s tour of Nice’s Cours Saleya market. There, ingredients are bought for the class including fabulous fresh vegetables, cheese and wine. The hands-on class is in a studio in the heart of the Old Town. At around 1pm there’s a convival Nicoise meal with plenty of wine. Classes from two to ten people.
petitsfarcis.com, 9.30am-2.30pm, €195/$197.
Style meets sustainability at Portugal's Casa Mãe, a blue-and-white hotel that also has self-contained cabanas. Located near the beach in Lagos, western Algarve, this property practises a zero-food waste policy. The 6,000 sqm garden (complete with pool and 200 chickens) provides produce for the restaurant and farm-to-table cooking classes which celebrate local ingredients. Guests can join a ‘cruise, fish and grill’ trip: spend a morning out on a boat, followed by grilling or making ceviche with their catch (bass, sole, bream, mackerel or red mullet) in the afternoon.
casa-mae.com, doubles from €90/$92 room-only, afternoon cooking classes from €65/$67, four-hour fishing tour €130/$134.
Master the art of Andalusian cooking with sherry educator and local-cuisine expert Annie Manson, whose popular day classes (Andalucian, Moroccan, seafood) end with lunch by the pool or on the roof terrace at her gorgeous old-town house. Annie also runs bespoke courses for couples which include two cookery classes, a welcome supper, tapas and sherry each evening on the roof terrace, use of the pool, a Spanish sherry and wine class and luxurious accommodation at Casa Alegre in a private annexe.
anniebspain.com, day classes €165 per person. Bespoke courses €950 each, excluding flights.
Cookery classes run by migrants and refugees from all over the world who are struggling to integrate and access employment. Migrateful’s mission is to provide training to empower their chefs to teach their love of food and cooking to others. Classes in London and around the UK are conducted both in-person and online. The next classes focus on vegan Moroccan cookery with Zineb and pescatarian Nigerian cookery with Stella early September. £75/$91.
migrateful.org
