When travelling, particularly in South East Asia, we like to attend a cookery school to learn more about the local cuisine. The Tresna Bali Cooking School certainly isn’t the cheapest, but it was very highly rated so we thought we would give it a go.

The school is run by Francis Tse Ardika who is Canadian and her Balinese husband Adi. As well as being excellent chefs and teachers they are also priests at the local temple so were able to teach us about the cultural and religious significance of the food we were preparing. On our visit there was only one other, Russian, couple so it was a very small class with loads of attention.

The school has its own kitchen garden so we started with a tour where Adi showed us all the different plants and herbs he cultivates and we picked some to use later. Other ingredients had already been prepared and were waiting for us in a mouth-watering display. The first job was to grind and mix spices to make the various spice pastes we would need, then it was a case of chopping vegetables, cooking satays on a cocconut husk grill outside and getting everything ready for a nine-course feast that left us very full and very happy. The food and attention to detail was outstanding. If you only ever do one cooking school do this one!

There are loads more photos and videos here