Our Cook’s Certificate in Food & Wine

Our new, aptly named ‘Cook’s Certificate’ will launch in April this year.

The Cook’s Certificate is a very intensive six-week course based on the teaching practices we’ve honed over the past ten years. The course provides training in the necessary technical skills as well as knowledge and understanding of ingredients and how to combine them to produce food that tastes delicious.

Thousands of people have passed through Cookery School and we have observed the difficulties that people have in understanding food, cooking and menu planning.  Our Cooks Certificate started as a response to this and embodies those principles and culinary skills required to make confident and knowledgeable general cooks.

We have called it a “cook’s” rather than a “chef’s” certificate as we intend to pass on those valuable skills that were the backbone of family eating, passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter but have become misplaced in our food obsessed delirium where basics have been side-lined. We hope to produce cooks that will enjoy feeding their families as well as those who wish to gain professional work.

As well as being taught the requisite skills from knife skills through to techniques associated with breads, pastries, sauces, cakes as well as a whole raft of other necessary cooking skills such as weights and measures, healthy eating, sustainable sourcing and menu writing, students will gain a Health and Safety certification, a first aid course and complete a regulated wine course (WSET).

With a focus on a high ratio of pupils to chefs, there are just twelve places available. With our training under their belt, students will be offered a one week work experience placement in a kitchen of one of our corporate catering clients, all of whom share our ethos of producing delicious and sustainable food using the best possible ingredients. Our work experience will help students make the jump from acquiring sound culinary skills to putting these into practice. It will also help them realise what their next career steps will be.

Alongside Cookery School’s Rosalind Rathouse, Lucy French and John Fernandez, specialist classes will be taught by patisserie chef Ghalid Assyb, award-winning baker Dan Lepard, Indian author and teacher Kumud Shah and Japanese sushi specialist Kimiko Barber.

For full details, visit the Cook’s Certificate page on our website.

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Cook's Certificate