• The National Cookery School Guide is for Cookery Schools, who have a year-round commitment to providing courses (not for one-off cookery courses run at establishments for marketing purposes). 

  • There must be a dedicated teaching kitchen of a professional standard.

  • The school must work with trained tutors or chefs – either visiting or staff.

  • The school must have been open for at least 12 months.

  • The school must be focussed on education and teaching skills.

  • The school must acknowledge their responsibility to sustainability and be actively working to achieve best practice.

  • The school must, where possible, address the provenance of ingredients and use local produce where possible.

  • The school must have all the necessary hygiene ratings required of their establishment.

  • The school must follow the appropriate standards to ensure the health and safety of their customers.

  • The school must have all the necessary insurance required of their establishment.

Our Advisory Panel was unequivocal in its desire to establish some clear ground rules for eligibility. However, The National Cookery School Guide has not been created to establish a code of conduct for the cookery school industry. (Please see ‘Aims‘). The Selection Criteria will be regularly reviewed on an ongoing basis.
The Advisory Panel was not involved in the selection of the schools. To ensure independence this was done by the contributing editors and will continue to be the case. Cookery schools will be added to the guide if they satisfy the criteria and are put up for selection. To qualify for inclusion a minimum of four of the contributing editors must vote for the school to be included. Schools will obviously be removed from the guide if they close or it is deemed that their standards no longer satisfy the criteria stated or, in the opinion of at least four contributing editors, the school is no longer worthy of inclusion. We would very much like people to nominate cookery schools that they feel deserve a place on the guide. Please contact us to do so.