Specialities
The luxury Lancashire boutique hotel and restaurant Northcote has earned a reputation – and a Michelin star – for turning Ribble Valley produce into superlative seasonal cuisine. The restaurant’s dedicated cookery school is in the heart of the Northcote kitchen, where head tutor Bruno Birkbeck, ably assisted by Emma Lawson, runs a panoply of courses designed for every level of home-cooking proficiency, with some specialising in more advanced techniques such as sous vide at home. Well-known guest chefs pop in to lead classes throughout the year – including Northcote’s own Executive Head Chef Lisa Allen. Course themes vary from baking and barbecue to the kind of accomplished modern gastronomy Northcote is famed for. The kitchen has space for just eight students at a time, which allows for lots of one-to-one guidance and an intimate atmosphere. For full-on culinary immersion, Northcote offers a no-experience-necessary five-day foundation course, covering the fundamentals of fine-dining cookery, with preferential hotel room rates available to students.
