One Month Course

ONE MONTH CERTIFICATE COURSE
An opportunity to raise your cooking to an entirely new level

When Lynda Booth started Dublin Cookery School, she wanted to bridge the gap between the home and the professional kitchen by offering a unique experience.

The 4 week course is an intensive full-time course.  It is a challenging and rewarding four weeks during which you will be exposed to a broad range of skills, techniques and inspiring recipes.  You will leave with an extensive and unparalleled repertoire of dishes to suit any occasion, together with the confidence to follow and adapt any future recipe with ease.  And should you wish to follow a career in the food industry, the course provides you with a first step on which to build a culinary career.

The feedback from the course has been hugely positive and word of mouth has been a key factor in its success.  It now attracts students from all over the country and from abroad.

All of our guest chefs love the professionalism of the enterprise, while students love the buzz, the camaraderie, and the satisfaction from intensive learning. 

 

How does the course run?
Every day on the 4 week course is a combination of demonstration and hands-on cooking. Each afternoon, you will watch a demonstration of a number of recipes.  The following morning, you will recreate these recipes in the hands-on kitchen, under the watchful eye of Lynda and her team.  It is not just a matter of producing great food, but having a chef at your elbow teaching you how to taste, to develop your technique, to improvise and to present your finished dish creatively.  After a morning at the stove, everyone sits down in our beautiful dining room to enjoy what they have prepared, compare notes and, above all, take a well-deserved break. The learning environment is both supportive and challenging. Any concerns about the level of cooking skills are dispelled by the informality of the supportive learning environment.

Who teaches on the course?

Lynda Booth, owner of Dublin Cookery School, is a hugely experienced chef who has been teaching her craft for more than a decade. She originally trained and worked as a chef at “Ballymaloe House” for three years before moving abroad to work in restaurants in Canada (Four Seasons) and Italy (Relais Chateaux Hotels). Based on this experience, she gained a coveted spot working for Raymond Blanc in his Michelin two-star restaurant “Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons” in Oxford, England.

Lynda teaches full-time on the course, along with the support of her course tutors. She has always felt, however, that there should be broad exposure on the course to different personalities and specialities from within the food industry.  What is common to all who teach on the course is not only that they are the best at what they do, but that they are also highly enthusiastic and proficient at passing on their skills.

 

Johan van der Merwe

As we continue to expand, it has been interesting to start a search for a new Senior Tutor. When the staff are as excited as the students about the successful candidate, it is a veryencouraging sign! We lured Johan back from Canada to Dublin where we know his heart lies. He has a reputation as an inspiring and gentle teacher from his period as a tutor in Ballymaloe. Though he has a hugely interesting CV, including our first tutor with experience of three Michelin stars (The Waterside Inn), it is his six years as Head Chef at Café Paradiso, the ground-breaking vegetarian restaurant, that singles him out as the ideal complement to our current staff. Denis Cotter, who established the restaurant, used to be a guest chef here at the school and we cannot wait to have this level of vegetarian food as a regular feature of the school again.

 

John Wyer

Having earned his early culinary stripes in two of Cork’s best loved restaurants, Jacques and Les Gourmandises, John Wyer expanded his horizons with stints at Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain, Germany and the UK. John has been based in Dublin for the last three years, cheffing at Pichet initially before joining his pastry-chef wife Sandy in the Michelin-starred kitchens of l’Ecrivain, where he was head chef. Last year he took up up the job as Head Chef at Mulberry Garden in Donnybrook and established it as the hottest restaurant in the city, garnering all sorts of awards. 

Grainne Wall

Training in Ballymaloe School and then at Ballymaloe House was just the first stage in what has been quite the culinary adventure for Grainne Wall. That adventure took her to the wilds of Ireland’s west coast for a three-year stint in Clifden before opting for the sophistication of some of London’s top dining destinations. To the classical foundation of ‘Quaglinos’ restaurant, she added the innovations of the Thai-French ‘Vong’, and then followed those  postings with the contrasting experiences of cooking at a private members’ club and one of Chelsea’s classiest gastro pubs. Returning to Ireland, Grainne immersed herself in the freshness of Avoca’s signature cooking style for three years. Since 2009 Grainne has brought all this experience to the school as a senior tutor.

 

Who are the guest chefs who will be joining our team on the One Month Course?
New to our guest chef line-up in is Stephen Gibson from Pichet.  He will be joining us along with our regular guest chefs, John Wyer and Rossa Crowe.

Stephen Gibson - Pichet

After graduating from Killybegs Regional College, Stephen Gibson started his culinary career in Paris at the renowned Michelin two-starred restaurant and brasserie Fauchon before spreading his wings to the other side of the globe to Australia to throw himself into the delights of Pacific-rim cuisine.  On his return to Dublin, he worked briefly with Paul Flynn in Balzac before taking the opportunity to cook on the QE2 for 12 months, followed by a spell at Nico’s on Park Lane.  Stephen then moved to Gothenberg, Sweden for a couple of years and arriving back in Dublin, worked in L’Ecrivain with Derry Clarke for 9 years.  Wanting to create his own place, serving the kind of fabulous and simple food that he loves to eat when dining out, led Stephen to open up Pichet in 2009 with his long-time friend, Nick Munier.  In its short existence on the Dublin dining scene, Pichet has already been awarded a Bib Gourmand by the Michelin Guide.  We are delighted that Stephen is joining our in-house team as a regular guest chef.

 

Rossa Crowe
Rossa has been a guest baker on the 4 week course since we opened. There is no one we have met who is more passionate and more knowledgeable about bread. Rossa’s breadmaking is based on traditional French methods. He worked for over six years in small artisan bakeries in the south of France. Rossa opened his own bakery, ‘Le Levain’, in Dublin last year, where he specialises in a natural fermentation method that was standard in 18th century France but that very few bakers use today.

We always schedule Rossa near the beginning of the course, so that you will build your own bread-making skills early on, and can continue to bake and experiment with bread on a daily basis throughout the course.

 

What will you learn on the course?
The following list is an example of the areas and techniques that are typically
covered on every 4 week course:

 



• Bread
• Desserts and baking
• Pastry
• Pasta
• Sauces
• Basic stocks
• Soups
• Use of herbs and spices
• Fish
• Meat and poultry
• Vegetables
• Kitchen hygiene and food safety
• Knife skills
• Wine tasting and food & wine matching
• Food presentation
• Dishes from different cultures

 

What are the School Facilities
Lynda Booth's Dublin Cookery School is conveniently situated in Brookfield Terrace (behind Carysfort Avenue) in Blackrock. It makes little impression from the outside which makes for all the greater impact as you step in. The design is breathtaking and it is so bright and airy that it is a massively pleasing environment in which to work.

Because of its area (3,000 sq ft), it has been possible to create three distinct sections and yet keep the open plan. The space is split into the following three functional areas:

The Demonstration Area The demonstration kitchen has been designed to make life easy for the teacher and to give perfect viewing for the student. The massive mirror above the granite counter allows students to keep a close eye on the dishes being prepared.

The Workstation Area The “hands-on” area is made up of 12 work stations at which students can cook in pairs. Each station is fully equipped so that whether it is making pasta, crushing spices or griddling fish, all is to hand. Domestic hobs and ovens are used in the school so that students can develop their skills using the equipment to which most people are usually exposed.

The Dining Area At the far end of the school is the dining room. This room seats up to 32 people, and is a wonderful space for eating and entertaining. A perfect place to unwind and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

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You are more than welcome to come and visit Dublin Cookery School (phone us at 01 210 0555 to arrange a suitable time). Come and ask questions about any aspect of the course and find out what is covered. By all means visit the website, but nothing matches a personal tour.

If you would like further details about this course, or would like to book a place, please telephone the school at 01 210 0555 or email us at info@dublincookeryschool.ie