Too many cooks spoil the broth…
…but no cooks leaves you with a pot noodle supper and a creeping sense you may develop rickets within the year.
Those carefully-placed cookery books might look good on your windowsill, but with a couple of pointers you might actually be able to do something with what’s inside them, too. And luckily you’re in a city full of ridiculously talented chefs who are ready to share their skills with you. After all, cooking a meal comes with all kinds of therapeutic benefits, it’s cheaper than ready meals, could earn you someone’s undying affection, and… you might even have fun.
So in light of that, we’ve put together a list of London’s best cookery classes, sliced up by skill or cuisine, for ease:
Baking Classes
The Dusty Knuckle | Dalston
The Dusty Knuckle started life in a 40ft shipping container. Now they run out of a permanent site in Dalston where they have a bakery and café flogging sandwiches, pizza, and a shed load of good bread. Once discovered, lunch here could become a serious habit – so save yourself some dough and learn to make their signature bakes yourself. All-day pastry and bread-making classes run on weekends, while evening classes tackle DIY veg pickling and hand-made pasta. Plus you’ll get to enjoy the fruits of your labours with your classmates over a meal, with beers from their neighbours at 40ft Brewery.
Address: Abbot Street, Dalston, E8 3DP | Price: £76-172
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Bread Ahead | London Bridge, Wembley
Bread Ahead: just about the most delicious warning sign you could hope to come across. Aside from turning out golden loaves and finely laminated pastries across their six London bakeries, the BA team find time to breed the next generation of home bakers with their cooking classes, held in their dedicated workshop spaces in Borough Market and Wembley. Ranging from one-off evening classes to three-day sourdough intensives, their courses run the gamut from hand-rolled pasta & springy focaccia to specialist workshops sharing the baking traditions of cultures across the globe. The teachers are some of the loveliest you could hope to work with, and you’ll finish the class by breaking bread with your fellow classmates.
Address: Borough Market, Cathedral Street, SE1 9DE and 26 – 28 Olympic Way, HA9 0NP | Price: £60-510
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The Basics: Borough Kitchen | Chiswick, Hampstead, Islington
Whatever you like to prep at home – curries, salads, sandwich de crisps et fromage – knife skills are probably the most useful thing you can sharpen up on. Borough Kitchen not only hawks some of the fanciest kitchenware in the city, they also teach you what to do with it in their cook school spaces. Their Classic Sauces, Stocks & Emulsions class builds another widely applicable skill set your recipe books will thank you for, but if you want to go more specific they also run workshops on steak, patisserie, fresh pasta and more.
Address: Chiswick, Hampstead & Islington | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £125
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Indian: Spice Monkey | Muswell Hill
Tucked away in a house in North London is Spice Monkey, one of London’s longest running Indian cookery schools. It’s headed up by Nikita Gulhane, who worked on Madhur Jaffrey’s series ‘Curry Nation’ and Radio 4’s ‘The Food Programme’ before turning to cooking classes, which focus on everything from street food to celebratory delicacies. You’ll create five different dishes on the day, but Nik’s holistic approach means you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of spices and flavours which you can apply to your beans on toast, too.
Address: 191 Victoria Road, N22 7XH | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £75-£155
Chinese: School of Wok | Covent Garden
According to statistics, the UK’s number one take-away is Chinese. And the UK’s best way to kick that habit is School Of Wok. It was founded in 2009 by Jeremy Pang, a 4th generation foodie who eventually decided his passion lay in teaching people how to properly cook Chinese cuisine. These days, the roster stretches across Asia, offering classes on everything from sushi to laksa via Korean street food and vegetarian Thai dishes. At the end of the day you’ll sit around a big table and feast on the dishes that everyone’s made – washed down with wine of course.
Address: 61 Chandos Place, WC2N 4HG | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £80-156
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Pizza: E5 Bakehouse | London Fields
E5 Bakehouse is an artisan bakery and café working out of a railway arch out in London Fields. And they’re really not just tossing the ‘artisan’ label around: they’re committed to using local organic produce and they even mill all of their grains on site. Their dough-focussed classes cover everything from sourdough (both 101 and ‘advanced’), pastries and pizza, running through how to maintain your starter (a fermentation of water and flour that puts the sour in sourdough) and the leaven (specific yeast) used to make your pizza base. And if you’re really keen? They supply flour to a rustic village retreat in Andalusia, where you can spend a week mastering all kinds of dough techniques from a couple of experts.
Address: 395 Mentmore Terrace, E8 3PH… or Spain | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £75-165
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Japanese: Yuki’s Kitchen | Crystal Palace
Sushi At Home author Yuki Gomi set out to demystify Japanese cooking techniques when she noticed how many people felt too intimidated to make Japanese food at home. Her classes, held in her own kitchen in Crystal Palace, are distinctly approachable, as she talks you through cooling rice with a hairdryer or rustling up a rectangular omelette. Classes range from specific dishes like ramen and katsu curry, to broader genres like home cooking and street food. And the miso class is excellent – you’ll get to join the annual tradition of creating your own miso, which you can enjoy a whole year later.
Address: 21 Harold Road, SE19 3PU | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £30-£150
Vietnamese: Uyenn Luu | London Fields
Cookbook author and regular Observer recipe contributor Uyenn Luu is your go-to teacher to learn about authentic Vietnamese cuisine. Her cookery class is set up like a supper club, where you bring your own drinks and sit down on a long, communal table while Uyenn and her mum bring you snacks. You then have a quick chat, before gathering around her stove to watch her cook the course. Then you eat, and repeat. There’s also an opportunity to make some of the dishes yourself, like crispy prawn and beansprout pancakes, before the final few dishes are prepared together and then shared.
Address: 32 Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, E8 4QN | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £125
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Mexican: Mexican Food Memories | Finchley
Baja-born Karla has been running her Mexican cooking classes since 2003, and has just published her debut cookbook. Classes are held in her own home, and with just six spaces you’ll get all the help and attention you need. Book in for the all-in-one classes which will have you prepare your own Yucatan feast or tackling street food classics, or hone in on the techniques needed to perfect tortillas, salsa, mole and more. At the end, you’ll sit around her kitchen table to feast on your creations, and all the recipes will be sitting in your inbox by the time you get home.
Address: 100 Ossulton Way, Hampstead Garden Suburb, N2 0LD | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £55-130
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Global: Migrateful | Across London
One to file under ‘just completely excellent, all round’, Migrateful’s cooking classes are all led by migrant teachers sharing their home cuisine. Since opening in 2017, the school’s welcomed almost 100 migrants and refugees, empowering them when they need it most and opening the doors to cultural exchange in the most delicious way possible. You’ll get to make dishes that you might not have tried here in the UK before, from Chechen salads to pescatarian recipes from Nigeria, and with each dish prepared collaboratively in groups it’s one of the most social ways to learn, too.
Address: Across London | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? Yes | Price: £45+
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Pasta-Making: Officina 00 | Fitzrovia
A magician never reveals their secrets… but thankfully a good pasta restaurant does. Officina 00 runs regular pasta-making classes in their Fitzrovia kitchen, packing plenty of tips into a snappy 2 hour workshop. Their beginners’ intro class will induct you into creating your own spaghetti and garganelli pasta, and when you’re ready to level up you can move onto ravioli, coloured dough and sauces that uniquely mingle sweet with salty.
Address: 67 Whitfield Street, London W1T 4DE | Vegetarian option? Yes | Vegan option? No | Cost: £65-£85
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Seafood: Bentley’s Oyster Masterclasses | Mayfair
The white-jacketed team at Bentley’s shuck over 1,000 oysters a day, and still have all their fingers. So if you want to learn how to prise open these notoriously difficult creatures, this is where to do it. You’ll get plenty of hands-on practice (as well as a rare chance to actually taste different kinds in one go), plus Champagne and sommelier-paired wines to match. Oh, and you’ll go home with an oyster passport too. It doesn’t work on the tube, though.
Address: 11 – 15 Swallow Street, London, W1B 4DG | Vegetarian option? No | Vegan option? No | Cost: £75
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Butchery: The Ginger Pig | Marylebone & Borough Market
The Ginger Pig started with Tim Wilson and a farm in Yorkshire. Nowadays it’s a collection of likeminded small-scale farmers who supply a string of eight shops with their finest British-reared meat. Over 35,000 strong-armed (and strong-stomached) punters have attended their butchery classes, which tackle every kind of meat (including game) as well as teaching you BBQ techniques and the trick to the perfect steak. They’re a chance for guests to develop a proper understanding about where their meat comes from, as well as trying their hand at basic butchery. It all ends with a fun, wine-drenched, two course meal, topped off with a goodie bag filled with cuts you’ve prepared earlier, as well as a shed load of sausages.
Details: 8-10 Moxon Street, W1U 4EW and Borough Market, SE1 1TL | Vegetarian option? No | Vegan option? No | Cost: £195-225
Already a culinary maestro? Get behind the bar at these cocktail-making classes