Our Residential Cookery Course

Our 4 week cookery course will provide invaluable hands-on cookery training. You will receive an excellent grounding in all aspects of cooking and will be able to cook for small functions, work on a yacht, or in a chalet kitchen for a ski season; or run your own catering business.

Your confidence will grow in leaps and bounds during the first week of the cookery course. You will develop basic cookery techniques and experience first-hand the delight that comes from seeing your skill levels improve. The spacious purpose-built kitchen has been designed to allow easy access to all cookery equipment and comfortably accommodates our maximum group size of 12 people. Be sure to view our virtual tour of the cookery school kitchen.

 Thank you very much for your time and attention on such a wonderful course. The skills I have learned
will now be with me for the rest of my life and will prove invaluable. - Edward L
 

In fact our cookery courses are very much about how to work in a busy environment. Lunch and evening meal production is very much a group effort and the turning out of high quality and well presented food for a set time teaches all students the importance of 'team work' where tolerance and cooperation are key survival skills, especially when the kitchen gets busy and hot.

The cookery course syllabus also includes how to source and use ingredients, menu planning, use of available kitchen space and equipment, budgeting and stock control, client liaison including handling complaints and cooking at altitude where appropriate. We also include a session on matching food with wine. In addition housekeeping skills such as cleaning and bed making are also covered where required.

Our cookery courses teach you how to scale up your working for larger numbers of guests, a very important skill when catering in chalets or restaurants. We also cover dining etiquette including formal and informal table laying and teach kitchen management, organisation and hygiene. We are a Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene registered training and examination centre for the Foundation Food Hygiene Certificate.

 A month was the perfect amount of time to get a really good grounding in cookery - Mark R
 

Course fees include accommodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You do not need to bring any special cookery equipment, you will be provided with everything you need to enable effective learning. This includes a well researched and presented 500 page course book (yours to keep and make notes in). Past students call it their bible!

Finally, we offer our students free use of a nearby luxurious four star sport and fitness centre (including fabulous pool) at Tortworth Court ( http://www.four-pillars.co.uk/Tortworth/lclub.html)