2 For 1 Cooking Class with Ann's Smart School of Cookery 10712754

Very informative and enjoyable lesson, bought for my birthday by my son and daughter in law. they shall be getting the fine dining menu cooked for them in return. I would highly recommend Ann's smart school of cookery.

I was bought a cookery course at Ann's Smart School of Cookery - I went with my Nephew Lee and we had such a great time. We learnt so so much from Ann- She is BRILLIANT TRAINER.We prepared, cooked and served them ate our meal. Which I may add was amazing, so tasty and full of flavour

Food was more of a carribean twist to the classics rather than traditional dishes. This was good fun, would be a good group event

This Asian and Thai cookery class was a gift from some friends following my early retirement. I had always wanted to do a cookery class so I was grateful this gift and couldn’t wait to attend as I had never attempted Asian or Thai cooking before. I was surprised that the lesson was on Good Friday but glad that I was going to do something fun instead of staying at home. I arrived at St Katherine’s Dock earlier than expected so used the time to look around and take some pictures before starting at the session. I was excited when we were let into the venue and instructed to leave our bags on one side and hang our coats on another before washing our hands and donning our aprons. Our instructor did a head count of 21 and told us how the two hours was going to pan out. Unfortunately for me, I had to visit the lavatory which meant that by the time I came out all the ‘prime’ seats were taken and I was left with a seat right at the very end of the table in front of a pillar which meant most of my view was obscured. The chef told us about himself and then we were ready to start. All the other visitors seemed friendly. So for the first dish we were cooking, volunteers were needed to make the Asian broth which consisted of onions, butterfly prawns, spices and passata. I was one of the first four people to volunteer. I chopped onions and lightly fried them ready for all the other ingredients. Two of us chopped and fried onions whilst the other two butterflied and fried the prawns (a substitute for clams). After adding the passata we let it simmer for a few minutes before we were ready to taste. Since there were so many of us we had to ensure that we served two prawns per person to ensure that everyone got to taste. For the rest of the session, I sat and watched whilst others took their turn to do something to contribute to cooking of the dish. This was so disappointing for me since I was expecting to learn how to cook a Thai and Asian dish from start to finish, with more hands on. I was quite upset by this since it was a full priced gift that had been bought for me. I didn’t feel the session was value for money. Some of the ingredients had had to be substituted due to the supplier as the chef explained. BUT two medium sized trout to enable 21 people to cook and sample, I thought was stingy – but quite apt since the session took place on Good Friday! I really felt that this session should have been run as two classes as there were 21 people having to share three hobs and three dishes. This was just too many people for me to get the full ‘good experience’. I expected to do more than just chop onions which was the only thing I did for the two or so hours. This was more of an observation class not what I would consider to be a cookery lesson. No photos were allowed so we couldn’t even take pictures of the food – again disappointing. Despite the disappointment, the cooked food sampled was tasty although I wasn't sure whether this was authentic Thai/Asian taste.

This was a superb cookery class and a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a morning. Ann, our host, was full of top tips and great ideas for stress-free entertaining. The menu we prepared and cooked looked fabulous and tasted divine! We are feeling inspired and are going solo this weekend to prepare the same menu for friends...... Thankfully Ann forwarded the menu and detailed recipes for us to follow.

The whole experience was brilliant and added to by Ann the Master Chef. We have bought the experience again to explore different food skills and also for a family event including 9 people

I purchased this as a gift for my girlfriend. The day was excellent. We made three different curry dishes (Padang curry, Vietnamese curry and Punjab Curry) and the amount of useful tips and hints we picked up on the day was amazing. Since the cooking experience I've made all three curry dishes and they've all tasted exactly the same as when we cooked them in the class. I would recommended this to friends and family and we are both looking to book more classes with the Smart School of Cookery. If you do attend, I would recommend bringing a notepad as you learn so much about cooking in general that it's easy to forget things. Anne was such a great teacher. She gave use useful hints and tips about cooking. She informed us about where we could find the ingredients and her culinary skills were amazing. Plus it was great that after the class we received the instructions for making the dishes. The only issue we had was the booking procedure. It was quite difficult to find a class that we wanted to do as a lot of the classes were fully booked for our preferred location. We had to choose another location however based on the day we had it was worth it.

the morning was enjoyable but our problem was that as reasonable cooks we wanted something which was more challenging than the choices that were on offer. The other issue was that it was not easy to book - took several attempts over several days to gain access to the click through school site and then preferred location of london was fully booked for months so we went for an alternative venue.

This was a great experience i did with my Mum,we both throughly enjoyed it. I think the only thing i would recommend would be an instruction sheet to be handed out at the end so you have a full record of what you made

Our half day spent with Ann on her 3 Course Gourmet Meal course was something very different and thoroughly really enjoyable. She was truly delightful and her enthusiasm infectious. We were only 4 in the group which was a real bonus and we had the chance to work alongside Ann, prepare, cook and serve the food and then eat it afterwards. We loved every minute of the 3 hours spent with her!