Quick-Fire Cookery Course

I’ve got two things against cookery courses: one, they’re too expensive and two, they’re too long.

With all the food porn I watch on TV, I should be an expert chef by now, but I’m not. I can watch Jamie Oliver cook a delicious citrus seared tuna with crispy noodles and then, having worked up an appetite, I’ll go and make a peanut butter sandwich.

Given this sad state of affairs, I was delighted to hear that the people at L’atelier des Chefs have designed the perfect cookery class for people like me. It’s called Cook Eat and Run. Basically, you learn to cook a gourmet meal in half and hour, then you sit down with your fellow classmates and eat it. I made guinea fowl stuffed with herby ricotta, served on a bed of polenta and rocket leaves. And it only cost £18. I’m sure I’d pay roughly that if I ordered it at a restaurant nearby. Except, now I know how to cook it myself, so that’s gotta be worth something.

I was initially doubtful about learning to cook a great meal in 30 minutes, but I managed to do it, plus I picked up some useful chopping techniques from our chef, John Fernandez.

There were about four people at each cooking station and, after John told us what to do, we divided the task among the group. The only thing we had to do ourselves was stuff the ricotta mix under the fowl’s skin. Then we handed our trays back to John to pop in the oven. While the birds cooked, we prepared the parmesan and sundried tomato polenta. The timing was spot-on.

We sat at a communal table and ate our lunch. It was clear that many of the people on the course were repeat customers. Some worked locally and were on a lunch-hour and one couple had their meal ‘to go’. I sat next to a drama teacher called Shaun who’d been given the course as a gift. He described it as ‘bringing back the sociable lunch hour’. We drank to that.

L’atelier des Chefs
19 Wigmore Street
Marylebone
W1U 1PH

Tel: 020 7499 6580