The chefs and schools offering the best online cooking classes for adults

Officina 00

If you, like half of Instagram, have dusted off the pasta machine that’s been sitting in your attic for the past few years in the hope of using this downtime to master the art of rolling and cutting the perfect pasta, Old Street restaurant Officina 00 is here to help. Masterclasses are held on their Instagram Live channel, with the ingredients posted in advance. From spaghetti alla carbonara to fresh egg tagliolini with ‘aglio, olio, peperoncino’ sauce, follow along to see your home-cooked dinners get a whole lot more exciting. And if all goes belly up? Officina 00 is delivering expert takes on their signature dishes via Deliveroo and lesser-known delivery service Slerp.

Deli Cat Supper Club

Hosted by The Initiative, Deli Cat Supper Club offers virtual cook-along sessions every Thursday evening led by top London’s chefs. Andras Katona (of The Savoy, Fat Duck and Restaurant Gordon Ramsey) and Robin Gill (The Dairy, Counter Culture, Darby’s) are among the chefs to have already taken part.

To join a Deli Cat Supper Club, reserve your place at the table and purchase your supper club cooking package. Ingredients will arrive within 24 hours before the event begins and will come accompanied by an aperitif and a bottle of wine chosen to complement the meal. Then at 7pm, pop on your apron and tune in to get cooking. Each dining experience lasts 1.5 hours, costs £40 (£5 of which goes to a food bank charity) and is open to 15 guests only, to make it more memorable.

Leiths online cookery courses

For a cooking course that takes the kitchen seriously, look to Leiths Cookery School. While all in-person courses have been cancelled until the end of May (at least), the school is still offering several longer courses online: from a six-week Teen Cookery Toolbox course for 13-18 year olds keen to learn their way around the kitchen, to a 24-week Essential Cooking Certificate for those who want to emerge from lockdown with a qualification under their belt.

PRICE: £195 - £2,095 depending on class

Jason Atherton

While a meal at any one of Jason Atherton’s restaurants might have been a treasured treat to save up for in the past, now you can cook alongside the Michelin-starred chef virtually every evening, if you wish. Keeping the umbrella term ‘social’, which features in most of Atherton’s restaurant names, in the title, the chef has launched an IGTV series, Social Kitchen Isolation, which sees him teach one new recipe each day from his kitchen.

Kudu

Patrick Williams, the chef-owner of Peckham’s delectable South African restaurant Kudu, is hosting regular cooking tutorials via the restaurant’s Instagram page. What’s more, he’s inviting followers to request the dishes they would like to learn how to make. From sea bream suppers to burnt cheesecake puds, there’s a wealth of cooking tutorials stored up to watch. And as a bonus, many of the tutorials see Williams' incredibly cute toddler lend him a helping hand.

Pizza Pilgrims

Sure, you can still order takeaway pizza as a lockdown treat. But wouldn’t it be more fun to learn how to roll, top and ‘fry’ your own? Much-loved chain Pizza Pilgrims is here to help. The restaurant group is delivering make-your-own-pizza kits every day, offering step-by-step tutorials on how to make them on IGTV. No pizza oven required, because these can be cooked in the frying pan. There are currently 50 kits being distributed a day, which can be delivered nationwide. Each kit costs £15pp and contains the ingredients for two margarita pizzas. In their own words: ricotta get through this!

The Tapas Room & The Modest Merchant

Acclaimed restaurant The Tapas Room (the evolution of Brixton’s former Donostia Social Club with branches in Deptford and Tooting) has joined forces with wine supplier The Modest Merchant to stream a series of free, weekly cooking classes from the kitchen of head chef Paul Belcher. Learn how to create some of the Spanish staples that have made Belcher’s restaurants so popular, while sipping carefully selected wines.

Tom Kerridge

Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge is turning his hand to less demanding but still delicious recipes to help us eat well during lockdown. Hosting a new, regular Lock Down Dinners series via Instagram, the chef and TV personality is teaching us how to make ever-so-slightly-fancy takes on staples such as cauliflower cheese and chickpea curry. Follow him on Instagram to see what he’ll be cooking up next.

Morty & Bob’s

While some online cooking classes might sound a bit ambitious to the kitchen novice, one thing we can all have a crack at perfecting during lockdown is the humble but eternally satisfying toasted sandwich. Here to help are the team behind Morty & Bob’s, the Coal Drops Yard joint known for making some of the best toasties in London. From the foolproof cheese and onion to the more advanced mushroom and truffle toastie, tune in for tips on making the ultimate comforting snack like a pro.

Andrew Wong

Want to learn how to make your favourite Chinese delicacies now that you’ve got more time on your hands? You’ll be hard-pushed to find a better tutor than Michelin-starred chef Andrew Wong (A. Wong, Kyms). From how to make your own dim sum dough (21 May) to perfecting your marinades (11 June), the acclaimed chef will take his students through the fundamentals of Chinese cooking. Classes are limited (just one a month, for now), so jot down the dates and reserve your place in advance.

Learning with Experts: chocolatier Paul A Young

Craving some quality chocolate? Why buy a bar when you can learn how to make your own from one of the best names in the business? Master chocolatier Paul A Young is delivering tutorials through online course provider Learning with Experts. Young’s The Art of Chocolate Making course begins with an introduction to chocolate, before guiding you through making truffles, ganaches and the chocolatier’s signature moulded chocolates. Not only will you be learning from Young himself, the friendly forum is designed to encourage community and you’ll be in a class no larger than 20 – meaning there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions along the way.

Other Learning with Experts courses include bread making with French baker Richard Bertinet and wine appreciation with presenter of The Wine Show Amelia Singer.

The Athenian

Hip Greek restaurant The Athenian is not only delivering its souvlaki and gyros via Deliveroo, but co-founder Tim Vasilakis is also live-streaming lessons on how to make some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes via Instagram Live. The weekly classes take place on Saturday evenings (with the recipes and ingredients posted beforehand), and cover how to make the likes of Santorini tomato croquettes, spicy feta dip and homemade gyros. The restaurant is also doing its bit to support those on the frontline of the crisis, offering NHS staff 50% off food orders.

Bread Ahead

Gourmet bakery Bread Ahead is hosting daily baking workshops at 2pm on Instagram Live. Led by Bread Ahead founder Matthew Jones and Manuel Monade, who oversaw the bakery’s the brand’s bakery school prior to the outbreak, the workshops offer the chance to make everything from rosemary focaccia to cinnamon buns and those Insta-famous doughnuts. Visit the Bread Ahead website where the entire month’s schedule has already been uploaded, so you can choose what you want to make in advance and have plenty of time to shop for ingredients.

Meanwhile, for a more personal cooking lesson, check out the bakery’s online doughnut-making workshops, held via Zoom. The classes last two hours, cost £25pp and are a chance to be guided through making one of the bakery’s most famous treats.

Daily Kitchen Live with Jack Monroe and Matt Tebbutt

In mid April, Jack Monroe, author of Tin Can Cook and the queen of cooking on a shoestring, launched a cooking show, Daily Kitchen Live, to help a nation in isolation make ‘delicious, no-nonsense dinners’. Together with chef and presenter Matt Tebbutt, Jack delivered two weeks’ worth of daily lessons on how to make delicious, innovative and even exciting dishes out of the contents of our storecupboards. At a time when cupboard essentials are virtually all we’re living off, the show couldn’t have been better timed. All episodes are currently available on BBC iPlayer.