WFI has searched high and low
to find the top places for a spot of
culinary self-improvement, whatever
your budget. Here are the results…
Best value for money...
1 Kitchen Confidence
Suffolk
Kitchen Confidence is based at the Rookery, a delightful old building in the idyllic village of Walsham le Willows, near Bury St Edmunds. It's a wonderful place in which to hone your cookery skills - and the good news is that it doesn't cost a fortune. I attended a one-day class, which costs £50, but the usual is a three-and-a-half day residential course, with everything included, for £350.
Classes are limited to only four people - so you're guaranteed to get plenty of one-on-one
tuition - and are tailor-made to build on
students' existing skills. Indeed, Cressida, our teacher, had rung me beforehand to determine my current level of competence and to find out what I hoped to get out of the day. Cressida also offers a range of thoughtfully planned and more precisely targeted courses: there's one for
youngsters heading off to university; another for people who've recently lost a partner; even one aimed at fathers-to-be.
My day began with pastry-making, something I hadn't done for many years. Me and my classmates turned our pastry into tarts and were encouraged to come up with our own fillings: I opted for goat's cheese and caramelised onion. Before the day was out we'd turned our hands to Thai stir-fried beef, chicken liver pâté, stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in parma ham, and warm courgette and red pepper salad.
Throughout, Cressida proved to be a capable teacher with a huge passion for food, throwing in plenty of tips such as the best way to store fresh herbs or slice an onion.
We ended with a well-deserved glass of wine and the chance to sample our efforts. But that's not the end of the story; since then, I've tried out several of the dishes we made that day, all of which have gone down spectacularly well. And you can't say better than that.
2 The Cookery School at Little Portland Street
London W1
This diddy little place, just a couple of minutes from Oxford Circus, aims to demystify cooking and make it enjoyable for all. Individual evening sessions start at just £60 for two hours, and if you book a course of six lessons, you'll receive a discount. The school runs a huge range of classes, from those suitable for the
whisk-o-phobic to those designed for the true enthusiast. The workshop on Japanese cookery that I attended started with a glass of sake and nibbles, then tutor Kimiko Barber let us into the secrets of perfect tempura and other Eastern mysteries, before the ten of us were unleashed on the kitchen to create a variety of dishes.
The evening ended
with a sit down, some more sake and the happy decimation of our delicious creations. Education, dinner and drinks, all for a mere £60: a bargain.
3 Mistley Kitchen
Essex
My day of pasta- and antipasti-making, set in a homely, open-plan kitchen in the quiet, riverside village of Mistley, was intimate and friendly. With a wood-fired oven to keep us warm, we cooked up simple Italian dishes using the freshest ingredients, including seafood that was added to the menu at the last minute, having arrived that very morning. We tasted as we cooked, even sampling some 80-year-old balsamic
vinegar along with chunks hewn from the biggest block of Parmesan I've ever seen. Sherri Singleton's tuition was informative, easy to follow and perfectly paced, with time enough to cover questions and explore how the recipes could be adapted. Afterward, we shared a lovely lunch, with wine, all of which was included in the
price of £50, which also covered course notes and recipes to take away. The time and care given to every element of this day made it feel like my own personal cookery lesson.
4 Orchards
School of Cookery Warwickshire
If cooking for more than two brings you out in a cold sweat, look no further than Orchards. Here, in the homely kitchen of a Georgian farmhouse, Isabel and Lucy Bomford demystify the art of effortless entertaining. During their five-day Designer Dinners course, six students cook 12
complete menus, each including canapés, a starter, main course and a dessert, as well as a host of biscuits, cakes and snacks. The price of £550 includes everything: accommodation, all meals and wine and a lot of teaching. It's an intensive course but, thanks to Lucy's easy style and tried-and-tested recipes (she worked at the Georges restaurant in Paris's Pompidou Centre), stress and mess don't get a look in.
And since the setting is domestic - with
music on and plenty of chatter - the inevitable successes are easy to replicate at home.
5 Horn of Plenty
Devon
You can visit this country-house hotel - set amid glorious Devon country overlooking the River Tamar - for a marvellous meal with fine wine; or, for pretty much the same price (£55), join one of chef Peter Gorton's cookery courses, and get an awful lot more. My course began at 9.30am with coffee and shortbread in the drawing room. After this, Peter led us into his kitchen, where he and his team showed us how to cook a lunch of lightly smoked tuna with a sunflower seed and tomato dressing; pan-fried medallions of pork with apple and celeriac conserve; and iced Grand Marnier mousse with bitter orange sauce. After this, we sat down to devour the dishes, washed down with lashings of wine. This is a demo, not a hands-on course, but don't be put off: Peter covers plenty of ground, and his knowledge and passion are inspiring. I learnt lots about cooking, but I also gained an insight into the world of the chef and real impetus to experiment for myself.
Best for location...
6
Italian Secrets
Sicily
'Kite'. That is the English translation of L'Aquilone, the name of the villa at which this week-long course is held. And an appropriate moniker it is, too, as the place towers over the Tyrrhenian
coast of northeastern Sicily to such a vertiginous extent that one feels almost airborne.
The host, Anna Venturi, has long run classes at Italian Secrets in Beaconsfield. For 'Italian Secrets', though, here read 'Sicilian', as this course (£1,550 each, excluding flights) reveals the cornerstones of cucina Siciliana. These ingredients, which crop up in dish after dish, include aubergines, capers, sultanas and pine nuts, but not, despite what you may think, garlic. "British people think all Italian food uses lots of garlic," says Anna. "Here, we use it sparingly."
Over five nights of cooking, students learn how to make dishes such as pesce de spada involtini,
little stuffed rolls of swordfish, and caponata, the sweet-sour melange of aubergine, tomato, celery and capers that, more than any other dish, defines Sicily. During each class, Anna's friend Renata is on hand to offer her expertise, as is her cook, Rosetta, whose family, up in the mountains, provides the course with the freshest Ricotta you've ever tasted.
With the cooking taking place in the evenings, the days are set aside for trips. Tourist sights are taken in, so students get to visit lovely Taormina, with its Greek amphitheatre and views of brooding, magnificent Etna. But it's the things you wouldn't see as a tourist that stand out - the trips to working olive oil factories and fish markets, the purchases from which are cooked that very evening.
Of course, all this cooking is meaningless
without the chance to get stuck in to your efforts. And so at the end of each class, the students withdraw to the pergola-roofed verandah, where, as the wine flows freely and the lights of the Aeolian Islands twinkle from across the sea,
they tuck into a meal that bears the Kite mark
of authentic Sicilian quality.
7 Green Cuisine Cookery School
Herefordshire
Built in the wild countryside of the Welsh borders in the 13th century, Penrhos Court is now a hotel and home to the Green Cuisine Cookery School. This setting, with its weeping willows, duck pond and rare birds - plus oak beams, flagstone floors and
roaring log fires inside - is wonderfully in tune with chef and nutritionist Daphne Lambert's organic lifestyle. Daphne's been a vegan for years and grows most of her food in the hotel's kitchen gardens, which also supply the ingredients used in her two-day, full-board Food & Health course (£230). The course aims to teach students how their choice of foods determines their health, wellbeing and quality of life and is packed with fascinating and arcane facts and techniques, from how to make
hazelnut milk to the value of using hemp oil. Truly inspiring.
8 Gourmet Escapes
Norfolk
The Great Escape Company has some
lovely self-catering properties in Norfolk, and has introduced a programme of Gourmet Escapes to make the most of them. My two-day course, at Holly Lodge, near Kings Lynn, began with French chef Jean Marc talking us through the menu he had devised for us to cook. It sounded tough (pumpkin velouté and oysters in parsley sauce; sole fillet in a crust of dried fruits; risotto with hazelnut oil; shortcrust tart with brown ale and gingerbread) but, it turned out, no culinary genius was
necessary. My favourite bits were shucking oysters, making bouquet garnis, preparing langoustines, and learning how to make really good stock. At the end of each day, we served and enjoyed the three courses we'd prepared, with wine, and I have to say it was excellent! A two-day Gourmet Escape, with meals and accommodation, costs £395 per person.
9 Dunbrody Country House
Wexford, Ireland
A tour of Kevin Dundon's kitchen garden is a rich experience. Fat squashes and juicy courgettes, bounteous kale and fragrant Autumn Bliss raspberries all thrive in the mild microclimate of this pretty corner of the Irish Republic. This happy plot is
tucked away amid the 200-acre grounds of Dunbrody Country House, which means that those taking advantage of one of chef Dundon's cookery courses - which
include such themes as Vegetarian, Soup
& Bread and Fish & Shellfish - will get to make the most of ingredients that are picked just minutes before they are cooked. A one-day, non-residential course costs m140 (£98), but you'd be mad not to take advantage of the tranquil surroundings and stay at least one night in the hotel, which is an old Georgian manor. A two-day cookery course with one night in a double rooms costs m375 (£261).
10 Cooking
With Stavros
Symi, Greece
The magical atmosphere of this beautiful island has its devotees returning year after year. Its hub is the dramatic harbour, around which rise terraces of vibrant, neo-Classical houses, interspersed by the quake-ruined shells of their less fortunate neighbours.
It is on the harbourside that you'll find Mythos, where chef Stavros Gogios brings wider Mediterranean influences to bear on
traditional Greek ingredients and recipes. Stavros' repertoire includes Feta mousse with tapenade, seafood filo parcels and a gorgeously light fish moussaka. During
my five-day course, I found him to be an
inspirational teacher, instilling in his
students the confidence to plan amazing meals - and showing how most of the work can done in advance. The tuition costs £200 for five days (including lunches), on top of the cost of a one- or two-week stay with Laskarina holidays.
Best for children...
11
Cookie Crumbles
London W1
I had butterflies in my stomach before I arrived at the Cookie Crumbles course at the Divertimenti Cookery School. Not only was
I scared because I didn't know anyone, but I thought that everyone else would be really good at cooking. But I soon made friends and found people to cook with - most of them were round about 12 years old, just like me.
The teacher, Carola, was great; not like a school teacher, more like a friend of your mum's. This class was a Spanish workshop (£45 for
four hours). Now, if you'd asked me beforehand whether I like Spanish food, I would have
said no, but in fact I did like it. I particularly enjoyed the paella with chicken and the empanadas, which are a bit like pasties filled with chicken and rice and cheese. We made them into heart shapes and they looked great.
I do cook at home, mostly cakes and chocolate things, so one of my favourite parts of the
morning was learning how to make pastry and then baking a chocolate tart; we were shown how to melt the chocolate properly so it didn't go lumpy. I picked up lots of other useful tips, too, like how to chop vegetables in the best way.
I will try most foods but there is a limit: I don't always like fish, or spicy food or slimy things that don't look quite right. But I learnt a lot on this course and I felt I built up my confidence. I even peeled a squid with my bare hands. I'm not too keen on seafood, but I did it: I was brave. Now I can say I know how to do it.
At the end of the course I wondered why I was so scared to begin with. I had really enjoyed Cookie Crumbles and would do it again (I'd like to do a course on baking bread next). It wasn't like being at school; more like having fun with your mates. Kate Tudor, 12
12 The Art of Hospitality
London W14
This school runs courses for all ages, but specialises in children. I set off for my Saturday-morning course on apples and pears feeling a bit nervous but all the same looking forward to meeting new people, learning about these fruits and making French apple tart. There were eight of us on the course; the youngest was about six and me and another girl were the eldest at 12. The cooking was really enjoyable, and while we prepared our apple tarts we learnt about handling knives, working safely in the kitchen and tips on how to stop your apples from going brown. While our tarts were baking, we sampled different varieties of apples and pears, comparing their looks, tastes, and textures. My favourite was the Red Pippin. At the end of the course, we glazed our tarts with apricot jam and took them home to eat. Yummy! Felicity Crimes, 12
13 Quartier Vert
Bristol
We had the best time ever at the Quartier Vert school, based at the organic restaurant of the same name. After being welcomed into the bright, rustic kitchen by our tutor Maxine, we washed our hands (the first of many times), were given an apron and a dishcloth (making us feel like pros) and were ready to start. First off, we made Moroccan flatbread using wonderful spices and herbs such as fennel and coriander. Then we moved on to almond, lemon and Ricotta cake. Our skills were tested as we separated eggs, zested lemons, and creamed butter and sugar. Using yet more elbow grease, we whisked egg whites, added them to the creamed mixture and - voila! - we had a cake. Lastly, we made Middle-Eastern kebabs. This whole process was sensual: we ripped and chopped herbs, different people adding different amounts. At the end of the afternoon, we left with a fantastic goodie bag full of our newly made dishes. Isabel Frewer & Jo Maish, both 14
14 Apples Cookery School
Oxfordshire
Purpose-built with all the latest equipment, Apples is the brainchild of Ruth Tuthill, who left her job as a science teacher to set up a school for youngsters from five to 18. "The aim is to teach nutritious cooking to children of all backgrounds," says Ruth. "I love it when they think they don't like certain foods but once they've cooked with them, they change their minds." Edward DeArmitt, six, visited one of Ruth's after-school classes for five-to-nine-year-olds (£78 for six weekly 90-minute sessions). "We made jam tarts and cheese scones," says Edward. "I liked the jam tarts; they're nice and sweet. We got quite dirty," he goes on, "and we helped with the washing up. One day, I hope to help Mummy with the washing up." Edward is already planning a return. "I'd like to have my birthday party at Apples," he says. "They don't give you the party food; you make the party food." Edward Dearmitt, 6
15 Sticky Mitts
Correspondence
"I enjoy cooking and having something to do with the food I eat," says 11-year-old Alex Mackwood. "I'm on the food committee at school, where we discuss how good school food is. For instance, we think the gooey choc-chip cookies are tasty, although still not as good as my friend's mum's banoffee pie." Alex reviewed the Sticky Mitts cookery course, which allows children to learn at home. An introduction pack costs £45, plus postage, and contains wipe-clean recipe cards and a recipe folder, teaching notes, an apron and oven mitts. You can then buy a further pack with enough recipes to last a year. Alex was impressed. "I enjoyed cooking the lamb meatballs," he says. "They're more tasty than tinned ones and also, when you eat them, you really feel proud because you cooked them. It's good to get children involved in cooking because, in later life, you must be able to cook for yourself and not just leave it to your girlfriend." Alex Mackwood, 11
Best for blowing the budget…
16
Passport to Provence
Provence, France
"Lechez-le!" cries René Bérard, as olive oil drips from my hand after an overzealous pour: this is the first time a cookery teacher has scolded me for not licking my fingers. I remember the days of home-ec with Miss Bettess, who would issue a stern rebuke to anyone caught with a digit in the cake mixture. But not so René, who gives us a tasting spoon and encourages us to dip it in a stock pot or mixing bowl at any opportunity.
We are gathered around the beautifully worn kitchen table at La Bastide des Saveurs, a
lovingly tended Provençal house a few miles from the hilltop village of La Cadière. It is here that master chef René Bérard, owner of the charming Hostellerie Bérard, is giving us a four-day intensive introduction to the delights of Provençal cookery. We began the day with a tour of the Bastide's gardens, where René thrust bunches of rosemary, bay and thyme under our noses and explained that this is where they grow many of the herbs, fruit and veg used in his acclaimed restaurant.
Back inside, we prepare a Provençal feast of tapenade, pissaladière (onion tart) and saddle of rabbit with olives and sun-dried tomatoes. For four hours, we peel, chop, knead, sauté, stir and deglaze while René imparts his knowledge of, and passion for, southern French cookery. When we finally sit down to enjoy our work, we can't quite believe we are responsible for such a delicious spread. The onion tart is far tastier than its simple ingredients might suggest; the rabbit is meltingly tender. For the first time that day there is silence as we tuck in and bask in our collective sense of achievement.
Five nights at the Hostellerie Bérard, including four mornings of cooking, a daily breakfast, four lunches with wine, a welcome dinner and drinks, along with trips to local markets and producers, starts at m1,198 (£835) per person.
17 Novelli Academy de Cuisine
Hertfordshire
Guests at Novelli's 15th-century farmhouse home can get up close and very personal, from peeking at the contents of the Gallic chef's fridge to admiring the framed front page celebrating France's World Cup
victory in his loo. These residential weekend courses cater for groups of eight or fewer and are tailored to the group's needs (prices start at around £250 per person per day). As he guided us through a menu of scallops with black pudding, mushroom gateau, lamb cutlets with Roquefort soufflé and tarte tatin, J-C dispensed useful titbits and vignettes such as the occasion when Madonna tried to kill him with a dead grouse. This exclusive experience is ideal for those looking to inject panache into their dinner parties, and it's impossible not to be swept up by J-C's enthusiastic charm.
There is even be a helpline to call for his graduates. Now that's what I call personal
service.
18 Tasting Places
Koh Samui, Thailand
This week-long course on the beautiful Thai island of Koh Samui is wonderfully relaxed: you eat, sleep and cook with a view of the sandy beach and the turquoise ocean. Each day begins with breakfast, followed by a morning of cookery with gregarious Aussie chef Paul Blain in his open-air kitchen. The resulting Thai delicacies are eaten for lunch; the afternoon is then free for everyone to do whatever they want. Sure, you can laze on the beach but there plenty of other things to do - market trips or visits to small producers who wouldn't be accessible to regular tourists. These courses aren't cheap (they start at £1,380 per person, not
including flights) but they do offer value for money: Tasting Places arranges everything for you and the meticulous planning means everything runs like clockwork. So if you're passionate about food and travel, but you want to be cushioned from all the stress and hassle of organising a trip yourself, this is the perfect solution.
19 Interactive Dining
London W1
If you fancy an evening of fine food, wine and general indulgence, during which you learn the tricks of the trade from a top chef, consider an Interactive Dining evening at London's Claridge's Hotel. These tailor-made events need to be booked individually for groups of between six and 12. The evening begins with Champagne and canapés, then chef Martyn Nail gives a tour of the kitchens, where guests can gawp at the £19,000
ice-cream machine. Martyn then prepares a sumptuous meal, with guests doing some learning between courses, whether working an old-fashioned duck press, whipping eggs for a soufflé, or preparing langoustines. The whole experience is lubricated with wines from the Claridge's cellar. "It's a cosy evening with lots of chat," says Martyn, "a chance to see how a professional kitchen works and enjoy some opulent food." At £170 each for the evening, it's a splurge, but good value nonetheless.
20 Kasbah Agafay
Marrakech, Morocco
You'd be hard-pressed to find anything more inspirational than cooking outdoors amid organic vegetable gardens with the scent of herbs and spices perfuming the air and the breathtaking view of the Atlas Mountains on the horizon. All this and much more is offered by Marrakech's Kasbah Agafay, where daily cookery courses take place in the grounds of an 18th-century hilltop fort. Chef Ahmed Doulaki ("call me Howard") guides guests through the ancient art of tagine cooking in his circular, loggia-style kitchen. He gives a detailed history of each recipe, from the simple but delicious aubergine-garlic mousse to the rose-scented kofkas beloved by ancient kings of the land. Guests can eat their feasts by the pool, or dine in candle-lit splendour on the hotel's romantic turrets, which overlook a forest of olive trees. The courses cost £45 a day; prices for a room start at m400 (£280) a night.
Best for specific skills...
21
Billingsgate Seafood Training School
London E14
If you can get up as early as 4.30am, spend a
couple of hours wandering around in the cold, then start pulling the intestines out of fish
and still say you're having fun, you know you're
on to a good thing.
So it is with the Billingsgate Seafood Training School. A day spent at this charitable company (profits from public and commercial courses cover the costs of free educational classes for schoolchildren) is a mind-expanding experience. Courses begin with a fascinating tour of this world-famous east London fish market, led by a Fishmongers' Company Inspector. As you wander among the iridescent mackerel, brill the size of dustbin lids, pale, menacing dogfish, and tanks of cannibalistic lobster that come up, claws akimbo and ready for a scrap, you'll pick up bucket-loads of tips and trivia including how to buy shucked scallops (choose 'dry' ones, which contain no added water), how razor clams are harvested and what to look for when selecting fresh fish.
Then it's time to get down to some serious gutting, skinning and filleting under the
watchful eye of CJ Jackson. Co-author of Leith's Fish Bible, CJ is an expert on all things fishy
and an enthusiastic tutor. Students take much of their prepared fish home (armed with a wealth of recipe ideas), while CJ transforms the rest into a selection of easy, yet impressive dishes.
Then there's just time to try making one of the recipes (by September, kitchen facilities will have increased, allowing for more hands-on cooking) before everyone sits down for a delicious and thoroughly well-earned, lunch. One-day courses start at £80.
22 Belle Isle
School of Cookery
Co Fermanagh
I was a bit nervous about this course, which was devoted entirely to game cookery. However, chef Liz Moore soon put me at my ease. Liz approaches all kitchen tasks with utter pragmatism and kindly, but firmly, refuses to allow any of her students to wimp out. Eight of us in her game class (£75 for a day; £320 for three, including accommodation) stood at immaculate work stations looking at a trolley laden with hunks of flesh. Everyone blanched except our leader, who gamely hoiked a generous section of a deer's back on to the table and deftly began to turn it into tasty-looking medallions. Then it was our turn and, one by one, we realised the primal pleasure of turning flesh into food and within the hour we were all turning out (albeit rather oddly shaped) medallions of our own.
23 Ashburton
Cookery School
Devon
"Too macho for your nachos?" asks the
Ashburton website. If so, Derryck Strachan's 'Extreme Heat: Cooking with Chillies' course should appeal. Indeed, there's something about the often fiery chilli pepper that, well, brings guys together; all my fellow students were men. This one-day course (£99) is a great introduction to the variety of taste, texture and heat that chillies offer. Six hours sorting our chipotles and anchos from our choriceros and habeneros culminated in a feast of tom yum soup, Szechuan beef, chilli rellenos (stuffed), 'proper' chilli con carne (not a mince particle in sight), and a variety of mouth- (and eye-) watering salsas. If
you're after knife skills, you'd be better off opting for Ashburton's four-week diploma or the five-day 'Pressure Cooks' course. But
if you hanker after something a little spicier, Extreme Heat is for you.
24 St Martin's Bakery
The Isles of Scilly
This is bread-making in paradise. But it's also hard work, and you have to get there first. In my case, that meant a sleeper from London to Penzance, a helicopter to St Mary's island, then a boat to St Martin's. The bakery is run by Toby Tobin-Dougan, who fled here from a hectic life in Soho and now provides guests with a six-day itinerary costing £745, all-inclusive (save travel to Penzance). Over three days, you'll learn the history and theory of bread-making and will be taught to make the likes of simple white and brown loaves, sourdough, ciabatta, croissants, tarts, blackbread and pizza. You'll get real hands-on experience and recipe cards to take home, along with samples of the fruits of your labours. As well as the pleasures of learning how to bake from a great tutor, you can also walk round the tiny, picturesque island with its sandy beaches, green fields and pure tranquility. The only problem is leaving.
25 Natural Gourmet Cookery School
New York, USA
This cookery school is best known for its
philosophy of adapting Eastern macrobiotic ideas to the Western palate. But there's nothing theoretical about its knife skills course, an accessible, hands-on session that teaches the rudiments of both French and Japanese technique. Working with a chef's knife or Japanese usuba, you learn the difference between salad and sauté slices; the right way to dice an onion; and the importance of 'the bear claw'. You
discover how to make the most of broccoli and leeks, and master how to fillet a
pepper or segment an orange like a pro. Advanced techniques such as the
julienne, brunoise and batonnet push your new-found skills even further. Finally, sit yourself down and enjoy a communal meal made with the vegetables you've just prepared. The knife skills class cost $70 (£38) for three hours.
Course Contacts
Kitchen Confidence
The Rookery, Wattisfield Road, Walsham le Willows, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
Tel 01359 259835; kitchenconfidence.info
Cookery School at Little Portland Street
15B Little Portland Street, London W1. Tel 0207631 4590; cookeryschool.co.uk.
Mistley Kitchen
Acacia House, High Street, Mistley, Manningtree, Essex. Tel 01206 391545; mistleykitchen.com.
Orchards School of Cookery
The Orchards, Salford Priors, Evesham, Worcestershire. Tel 01789490259; orchardscookery.co.uk.
Horn of Plenty
Gulworthy, Tavistock, Devon. Tel 01822 832528; the hornofplenty.co.uk.
Italian Secrets
Capo d’Orlando, Sicily. Tel 01494 676136; italiansecrets.co.uk.
Penrhos Court
Kingston, Herefordshire. Tel 01544 320720; greencuisine.org.
Holly Lodge
Gourmet Escapes in Norfolk are arranged by The Great Escape Holiday Company. Tel 01485 518 717; thegreatescapeholiday.co.uk.
Dunbrody Country House Hotel
Arthurstown, New Ross, Co Wexford, Ireland. Tel 00 353 51 389600; dunbrodyhouse.co.uk.
Cooking With Stavros
This course is arranged via Laskarina Holidays. Tel 01629 822203; www.laskarina.co.uk.
Cookie Crumbles
64 St Leonards Road, London SW14. Tel 020 8876 9912; cookiecrumbles.net
The Art of Hospitality
St James Schools, Earsby Street, London, W14. Tel 020 7348 1755; artofhospitality.co.uk
Quartier Vert
85 Whiteladies Road, Clifton, Bristol. Tel 0117 904 8514; quartiervert.co.uk
Apples Cookery School
Tuthill Park, Wardington, Oxfordshire. Tel 01295 750720; applescookery.co.uk.
Sticky Mitt
For details of Sticky Mitts postal courses, call 0870 240 6892 or visit stickymitts.co.uk.
Passport to Provence
This course is arranged through Gourmet on Tour. Tel 020 7396 5550; gourmetontour.com.
Jean-Christophe Novelli’s Academy de Cuisine
For further details, call 01582 454070 or log on to jeanchristphenovelli.com.
Tasting Places
For details of Tasting Places’s holidays, call 020 7460 0077 or visit tastingplaces.com.
Interactive Dining
Claridge’s, Brook Street, London W1. Tel 020 7409 6450; savoy-group.com.
Kasbah Agafay
Marrakech Medina, Morocco. Tel 00 212 44 42 09 60; kasbahagafay.com.
Billingsgate Seafood Training School
Billingsgate Market, Trafalgar Way, London E14. Tel 020 7517 3548; seafoodtraining.org.
Bell Isle School of Cookery
Lisbellaw, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh. Tel 028 6638 7231; irishcookeryschool.com.
Ashburton Cookery School
Hare’s Lane Cottage, 76 East Street, Ashburton, Devon. Tel 01364 652784; ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk.
St Martin’s Bakery
Moo Green, St Martin’s, Isles of Scilly. Tel 01720 423444; stmartinsbakery.co.uk.
The Natural Gourmet School
48 West 21st Street, tNew York, NY 10010. Tel 001 212 645 5170; naturalgourmetschool.com.