Foodie Basic Skills Bootcamp

There’s a reason people love watching chefs work; there’s something magnetic about a real kitchen in motion. Our Foodie Basic Skills Bootcamp puts you right in the centre of a professional kitchen and teaches you Chef led techniques over eight Saturday mornings.

During the first four weeks, we build the technique everything else depends on: knife work, salads and dressings, egg cookery, and hand-made pasta and starches. The last four put that technique to work on the things that make a meal memorable: the five French mother sauces, fish butchery, poultry butchery, and meat cookery.

It’s hands-on, it’s interactive, and it’s eight Saturday mornings spent around people who get just as excited about a good sauce as you do.

Curriculum

September 12 | Mise en Place 101
“Mise en place” is a French term for getting everything set up before you cook, and it’s the first thing every professional kitchen runs on. This class covers proper knife technique, station setup, and pantry fundamentals, the groundwork that makes everything after it faster and cleaner.

September 19 | Salads & Dressings
Salads get dismissed as the boring class, but this one’s a favourite. You’ll build a vinaigrette by taste, make creamy emulsion dressings from scratch, and put together a composed salad substantial enough to be the whole meal.

September 26 | Breakfast Cookery
Chefs judge each other by how well they can cook an egg, and by the end of this class you’ll understand why. You’ll poach, scramble, and fry with precision, build a classic eggs benny from scratch, and plate it with sides that make the whole thing feel like a proper brunch.

October 3 | Starch Cookery
Starches show up in nearly everything you cook, from a Tuesday pasta to a holiday side dish. This class has you making fresh pasta dough by hand, building a potato gratin worth requesting again, and turning out risotto with the kind of ease that only comes from actually understanding the technique.

October 17 | Sauce Cookery
The five French mother sauces are the foundation behind more dishes than you’d expect. This class walks you through each one, then shows you how to build your own signature sauce from there, so you leave with a technique you’ll use for years, not just one recipe.

October 24 | Fish Cookery
Fish gets a reputation for being fussy, mostly because it’s easy to overcook. This class covers how to clean and filet a whole fish, how to cook it so it stays tender, and what to do with what’s left over, so you finish confident and ready to take on any filet.

October 31 | Poultry Cookery
Poultry is what is usually cooked the most, and understood the least. This class covers different cooking methods, how to break down a whole bird, and how to turn what’s left into a second and third meal that’s just as good as the first.

November 7 | Meat Cookery
The final class is about reading meat like a chef does: cooking to colour, not just to a timer. You’ll cover cooking methods, basic butchery, and how to make the most of leftovers, closing out eight weeks with the kind of confidence that carries into any kitchen.