This was a complimentary press event.
Never did I think heading to a cookery class would be a bucket list activity, but getting closer to my 30th it seems that this is who I am now. Who’d have thought it? When I got the coveted invite to try a Cookery Course at the Grand Hotel, York before it’s opening back in March I literally jumped out my seat and tapped in to my phone to my husband – “do you want to learn how to cook the best steak ever?” Of course, when he replied back I immediately accepted the invite.
The Cookery School at the Grand Hotel is part of a 15 million expansion at the luxury hotel in the centre of York. Originally the building was the headquarters for Northern Rail and it’s a very beautiful, atmospheric hotel now. I’m now longing for one of their spa breaks!
Fun fact, before the Cookery School was brought to life on the lower ground of the Grand, it very well could have been turned in to a “pet hotel” but eventually the idea was scrapped and squashed before turning in to a very stylish, cooking school.
As the school was relatively new, after being met by the concierge who directed us to where we needed to go, the wander down to it was like a maze – but it gave us a good a little nosey around the hotel before we reached our end destination.
Once we arrived, we found the stylish setting, very instagram worthy! It is perfect place for living our your late twenties, millennial dream of learning how to cook.
We were welcomed with glasses of fizz and we got to mingle with all the other attendee’s who looked equally as excited and nervous about trying to perfect the cooking of a steak.
Eventually we all gathered round the main cooking station to meet Andrew Dixon – a fantastic, kind and patient man who really knows his stuff and the rest of the brand new team that were joining the Cookery School.
We were all armed with an apron, a booklet with the cooking instructions and pencil to take notes.
Andrew showed us the first of the steps to making triple cooked chips. After that we put on our aprons, grabbed our glasses of fizz (for good luck, I promise!) and went to our very own stations to get cooking!
There’s plenty of stations, nicely laid out so you aren’t on top of one another – so even if it was a fully booked class you wouldn’t feel hemmed in – plus the large bi-folding doors that opened on to the courtyard made it feel like you were outdoors too.
After we followed the first steps we headed back to the head chef and learnt the best way to cook a steak. We like ours rare, and we learnt that the best tool to get it right, is a meat thermometer. For rare steak we only needed it to touch the pan for just under a minute on each side if you like it more on the “blue” side, but checking with the thermometer is the best way to perfect it.
We then did the second stage of cooking the chips whilst we had the steak, mushrooms and tomato in the pan and once we took the chips out of the frying pan of oil and let them rest for 5 minutes, we popped them back in.
Spoiler alert: I want to cook homemade chips like this every single time!
Andrew and his team were great, always walking around and being attentive if anyone needed any guidance – they are great fun and really up for a laugh! And to be honest, Mr C & had such a ball together. We know we like cooking in the kitchen together, but this seemed so much fun as we felt like total beginners and were helping each other along with each step. If you’re looking for something a little different for date night or a date day, I would really recommend this at the top of the list!
After Mr C & I cooked up an absolute storm in the kitchen – we had two plates filled to the brim that looked lip-smackingly good. We headed in to the scandi / Brooklyn loft style dining room where we could tuck in to our culinary skills. With the red wine poured (the house wine was Merlot and it was one of the tastiest wines I’ve ever tried) it was the perfect accompaniment to swill down our steaks!
Overall we had an awesome time, never stopped laughing through the whole class and I’m already wondering which course I can book on to next!
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