THE FRENCH FOOD COACH
Bondi Junction

Celebrating its first anniversary recently, the French Food Coach is Alison Maher’s French kitchen inside Bondi Junction’s luxe Williams-Sonoma store.

A regular shopper at the store, Maher, who once ran catering company OneBite, worked up the courage to ask Williams-Sonoma if she could open a school in their often-empty kitchen.

“It would be an ‘everyone wins’ partnership,” Maher explains of her pitch to the retail giant. “I attract people who want more confidence in the kitchen and the customers shop in the store and receive 10 per cent discount on the day of class.”

Maher invites budding cooks to take part in themed classes, such as the French Coastline, which kicks off with cheese and wine and meanders across the coast via two fish recipes, both teamed with killer French sauces: one is a rich beurre blanc, the other a buttery leek, saffron and dill coulis.

It all finishes with a fruit tart with crème pâtissière, beaten by hand.

In true French fashion, the plonk is poured liberally throughout class, making the exit via the giftshop all the more dangerous. Upcoming themes include French bistro-style dishes and Christmas entertaining: think pastry puffs, mini tarts, and salmon en croûte.
Details: frenchfoodcoach.com.au

PASTA EMILIA
Surry Hills

Anyone who’s ever tried their hand at making pasta from scratch knows too well the trials that come with it.

For the uninitiated, stodgy dough, sticky spaghetti and starch overload are all real risks, which is where the Pasta Emilia folks can help.

The homely Surry Hills diner-cum-providore, named after Italy’s fertile Emilia-Romagna gastronomic haven, offers hands-on workshops teaching the basics from the ground up, with a focus on organic ingredients.

Pasta Emilia’s cooking school began when Anna Maria Eoclidi and Simon Venning’s store first opened in Bronte in 2005, later relocating to Surry Hills.

“There is something that resonates with us when listening to the stories, the old traditions, kneading the dough and then creating pasta ready for eating,” says Venning. “It’s a timeless experience where people are lifted from whatever was going on before they walked through the doors.”

In the pasta-making class, you’ll learn how to get the flour mix right for those silky strands, plus how to fill puffy ravioli and craft cappelletti, linguine and twisted strozzapreti like Nonna. There’s a gnocchi workshop too, where you’ll get to nail featherlight pillows and three sauces: classic tomato, pesto and a gutsy gorgonzola and walnut cream.

Eoclidi also shares tips on where to find fresh organic ingredients for Italian dishes. It’s all enjoyed with a glass of wine at the end, and you’re usually sent home with fresh pasta packs to cook later.
Details: emilia.com.au

THE COOKING SCHOOL
Bondi Junction

An industrial kitchen inside Gray St’s Club Bondi Junction RSL is the unlikely home of The Cooking School.

Head chef Gabriele Emanuele has managed commercial kitchens for more than 20 years and joined the team in 2010, where he’s been charged with heading up the menu.

A typical three-hour class might be themed around seafood, where you start with a refreshment and then work through five recipes such as garlic prawns, a black mussel risotto and stuffed calamari.

Those with a sweet tooth will love the dessert class, where souffle success is in the bag, as are wobble-riffic panna cottas.

All the recipes get emailed to you once class is out so you can have another go at home.
Details: thecookingschool.com.au

THE FISH BUTCHERY
Paddington

You get to snack on house-made snacks and sip on PS Soda during every Fish Butchery masterclass, with the option to BYO for free.

Held at the Paddington speciality store, each class is aimed at deepening your knowledge of fish and confidence in working with it.

In the Fish Butchery Basics class, head fish butcher Paul Farag demonstrates how to break down a large Aussie fish, then dry gut, scale and fillet it, and use the different offal and cuts to get the most mileage out of it. Each guest takes home two portions of the fish prepared on the night.

Other classes include fish sausages, and fish charcuterie: think marlin ham, swordfish bacon and kingfish pastrami.

Keep an eye out for special one-off classes with Mr Fish Butchery himself, Josh Niland – there’s one happening on December 17.
Details: fishbutchery.com.au

SYDNEY SEAFOOD SCHOOL
Pyrmont

It’s famous for its star-studded roster of guest chefs and swish Michael McCann-designed fit-out, but the Sydney Seafood School’s real weapon is its manager, Roberta Muir.

At the helm for 22 of the 30 years it has been sitting above the Sydney Fish Market, Muir curates a clever mix of classes, from family-friendly ones where you’ll take home everyday recipes likely to end up on high rotation at your place (we still make a chilli crab and preserved lemon linguini that I learned there years ago), to more adventurous tutorials by the likes of Paddington’s Lucio Galletto, Giovanni Pilu (Pilu at Freshwater), and Three Blue Ducks’ Mark LaBrooy.

“The camaraderie between Australian chefs is something that struck me when I arrived at the seafood school 22 years ago,” Muir says. “I expected chefs to be kind of secretive and competitive – and instead I found this incredibly supportive community of people who love sharing their passion and knowledge – with each other and with our guests.”

Muir cites Danielle Alvarez of Paddington’s Fred’s, who presented with Julian Parisi (of Parisi’s fresh produce suppliers) as one of her favourite recent guests.

“Danielle’s cooking demonstration had such great energy … it was one of the most engaging and interactive demonstrations we’ve done in 20 years – then everyone cooked a superb lunch.”

Wine is pivotal to any SSS class (best not to drive, if you’re keen for the full experience, which always ends with a sit-down dinner in the adjoining dining room overlooking Blackwattle Bay), and the school this year partnered with Mike Bennie of P&V Wine and Liquor Merchants, and Piero Tantini of Godot Wines, to dial things up a notch.
Details: sydneyfishmarket.com.au