Handpicked experience · Bangkok
Bangkok, Thailand
A cuisine whose defining heat arrived on Portuguese ships, taught with a granite mortar and a bottle of fermented anchovies.
Spend a day learning how to cook traditional Thai meals.
Learn how to prepare Thai favorites like Tom Yum Goong, and more!
A market walk on some sessions, to learn the raw ingredients
Hands-on wok frying, paste pounding and knife skills
A multi-dish meal you cook, plate and sit down to
A recipe booklet to take home
Dietary adjustments arranged with advance notice
A hands-on Thai cooking session in Bangkok: knife work, curry paste made in a mortar, wok practice, and and then a table laid with everything you have made, plus recipes to take away.
An instructor-led class with your own station and equipment, working through several dishes from raw ingredients. Dietary requirements are usually workable if you give notice when booking rather than on the day.
Thai food's defining heat arrived late. Chillies are American plants, brought across by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century, which means the entire cuisine as we recognise it is younger than that contact. Before chillies, heat in this kitchen came from peppercorns, ginger and galangal — and those are still in the recipes, doing a job the chilli never replaced. What you learn in a class like this is a four-century-old fusion, not an ancient constant.
You will be given a granite mortar and asked to pound rather than blitz, and it is worth understanding why before your arm starts complaining. A blade cuts cell walls cleanly and throws the pieces around. Pounding crushes and bruises them, forcing out oils and binding fibre, salt and moisture into a paste that holds together. The two methods produce different food from identical ingredients — the blender version is thinner, sharper and separates in the pan.
Half of learning this cuisine is learning what things actually are. Thai basil and holy basil are not interchangeable: one is aniseed, for curries; the other is peppery and clove-like, and it is the one in the fried dish everyone orders. Galangal looks like ginger and behaves nothing like it — sharper, almost medicinal, and not substitutable. Getting these right at home matters more than technique.
The salt in Thai cooking is largely fish sauce: anchovies packed with salt and left for months until they liquefy. It is the same idea as the garum that Roman cooks built their food on, arrived at independently, and it explains why a spoonful transforms a dish that tasted flat. Nothing in a Western pantry substitutes for it convincingly.
Tell the school about allergies and dietary needs when you book, not at the door. You will be working with hot oil and sharp knives, so tie back long hair and wear closed shoes. And expect to eat properly at the end — this is a full meal, not a tasting, and a Thai meal is served all at once to share rather than in courses.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
No. The class is instructor-led with your own station, working several dishes from raw ingredients, and the knife and wok basics are taught as you go.
Correct. They are American plants brought over by Portuguese traders in the sixteenth century. Before that the heat came from peppercorns, ginger and galangal, which are still in the recipes.
Pounding crushes and bruises, releasing oils and binding the paste so it holds together. A blade cuts cleanly, giving a thinner, sharper mixture that separates in the pan.
Thai basil is aniseed and belongs in curries; holy basil is peppery and clove-like, and it is the one in the fried dish most people know. They are not interchangeable.
No. They look similar and taste nothing alike — galangal is sharper and almost medicinal. Substituting it changes the dish into something else.
Anchovies packed in salt and left for months until they liquefy — the same principle as Roman garum. It provides most of the salt in Thai cooking and has no convincing Western substitute.
Usually, with notice at booking rather than on the day. Say what you need when you reserve so the ingredients can be arranged.
Yes — and enough of it to count as dinner. Bring an appetite rather than a plan to eat afterwards.