Rick Stein’s famed Cookery School has undergone a major refurb just in time for the summer season, ready to welcome budding chefs on one of its award-winning courses. To complete a foodie weekend, holidaymakers can now stay in one of Rick Stein’s five traditional shepherd’s huts, a 10-minute drive from the Padstow Cookery School: making the perfect long weekend to enjoy the sun, sea, and seafood.
The Rick Stein Cookery School
Rick Stein’s prestigious Cookery School (opened 2000), overlooking Padstow Harbour, has had a complete makeover by the UK’s premier trade kitchen designers, Howdens, ensuring it is fit with state-of-the-art kitchens and a modern and contemporary feel. Known as one of the best schools in the country, it has been led by Chef Lecturer Nick Evans for 7 years. Nick is one of Rick Stein’s trusted chefs who teaches classic Stein recipes, with a natural focus on seafood cookery.
The refurbished school is a welcoming, bright space in which to discover a series of exciting programmes and workshops, tasting sessions and more. With a coastal interior theme reflective of its setting, it is punctuated with navy wooden accents, boasting oak cabinets, marble quartz worktops, Lamona sinks and taps, and antique-style fixtures and fittings to give it a home-from-home feel. The workshop kitchen is now fit with all-new upgraded Rangemaster gas stoves at each participant’s station.
The Cookery School has been a popular choice for budding chefs, amateurs, and professionals alike, offering one-day courses for holidaymakers and locals, more advanced, longer courses and courses taught by Jack Stein. The school is the finest place to learn how to cook fish – guests can watch the fish being landed on the estuary from the school window, before being taught how to prepare, cook, and serve it to perfection. Courses include the likes of ‘Catch and cook,’ a one-day course for £225 or the ‘Ultimate fish & shellfish’ which is the four-day course for £850, which includes fishing trips around Padstow and visits to local Cornish farms. Also available, are a selection of courses led by Jack Stein himself, including ‘World on a plate with Jack Stein,’ a one-day course for £198 on 5 May 2022 and ‘Cooking with Jack Stein’: a two-day course including a fishing trip for £395 on 6 and 7 June 2022. Half-day courses (from £95) include ‘Indian Seafood’ where guests learn to make prawn molee, Amritsari fish and Chettinad crab curry or the ‘Asian Street Food’ course, diving headfirst into three of Rick Stein’s dishes inspired by his travels around Asia.
View all courses for Spring/Summer here: www.rickstein.com/cookery-school
Rick Stein’s Traditional Shepherd’s Huts:
With new availability for spring/summer, the Rick Stein Shepherd’s Huts are the perfect cosy cabins from which to explore the local Cornish countryside. Just 10 minutes by car to Padstow and the Cookery School, the huts are located on the grounds of the historic destination pub, The Cornish Arms, St Merryn, which serves British fare with Rick Stein flair.
The traditional huts – designed by Jill, Ed & Kate Stein – offer peaceful countryside accommodation within reach of Cornwall’s burgeoning food scene, beaches, and scenic walking trails. Fit with Cornish stone walls which offer privacy, individual terrace areas on which to relax and complete with ensuite shower bathrooms and kitchenettes, and a double bed – the Rick Stein Shepherd’s Huts are the embodiment of Cornish charm.
Guests can wake up to breakfast available at The Cornish Arms, opting for a full English or something a little lighter, all made using the finest local produce from nearby farmers, bakers, and producers.
Dinner is also available at the pub – simple, British fare with Rick Stein flair as well as a wood-fired pizza served in the scenic beer garden.
Bookable via: www.rickstein.com
