Hampstead Cuisine School

Please note this cookery school is now closed and its website directs to London Cuisine school in south-east London

Basic Ingredients: A quirky, well established school that covers a range of international flavours in courses offered mainly on Fridays and the weekend. Specialist courses run by the in-house nutritionist include low-fat, cooking for blokes and wheat/dairy free. A maximum of six students per class on the hands-on workshops allows us for plenty of individual attention There’s a modern kitchen and a dining space based on a traditional German banqueting room. At around the £200 mark courses are not cheap.

They say: “For us the cooking alone is just one element; how you deliver, present, set the environment which includes lighting, music and colours are all important which we coach our students on all our courses.”

We say: The school likes to call itself “boutique” but it’s more Baroque really with its wordy website and lifestyle add-ons.