Taste & Create: The Best Food, Drink & Cookery Courses in Cornwall

Summer in Padstow is for booking tables ahead and dining out. Kitchens are buzzing, beach days are long and tummies rumble from adventures on land and sea. Come autumn the days are shorter and cooler, the bounty is plentiful, and there’s time for chefs to teach you to plate it up for yourself. 

Cornwall’s most popular cooking courses fill up months ahead for summer dates, but autumn and winter weekends still have availability – making it the perfect season to pair a morning on the coast path with an afternoon at the stove under the tutelage of Cornwall’s best chefs. 

Not only can you spend the rest of your break mooching around farm shops, delis and markets, then let your new skills loose in your holiday cottage kitchen – you can also take your new skills home to impress friends and family. 

Taste and create at these autumn cooking courses in Padstow and beyond: 

South Quay, Padstow

Seafood is a Cornish speciality. And where better to learn to cook it like a pro than overlooking the Camel Estuary? Rick Stein’s Cookery School is Padstow’s original culinary institution, and an ICSA-accredited Centre of Excellence for Seafood that mixes chef demonstrations with hands-on cooking. Alongside its long-running fish cookery courses, there are Cook & Catch courses, Spanish Tapas and Asian Street Food courses, and a two-day Best of Rick’s Padstow Restaurants, where head chefs from across the group share their techniques. 

Lanadwell Street, Padstow

Get behind a copper still and use Cornish botanicals to distil your own gin at Tarquin’s Gin School, tucked just behind the harbour. Dive into the history of Cornish smuggling and gin distilling, choose your ingredients, then create, label and wax seal your own personalised 70cl bottle. We guarantee your home-crafted G&T by the sea will be the best souvenir of the holiday. And if you fancy pairing it with a day trip from Padstow, there’s a second gin school on Fore Street in St Ives.

Trerethern Farm, Padstow

Cook over open fire at a BBQ workshop with seventh-generation farmer and former Rick Stein chef Ross Geach. Spend a day on his family farm overlooking the Camel Estuary, just a mile from Padstow, where you’ll enjoy hands-on cooking using meat and veg grown on site, and fish straight off the Padstow day boats. Workshops are capped at fifteen people, with private and one-to-one sessions available for something more bespoke.

Roseland Peninsula, 1 hour from Padstow 

The Roseland Peninsula is a beauty to visit in the autumn light. Well worth the drive from Padstow to learn Cornish pasty and paella making, home baking, fish cookery and other international-style cooking in a converted barn at Philleigh Way Cookery School. Owner Rupert Cooper is food obsessed, and based just a mile and a half from the King Harry Ferry, this is an incredible spot spark your own foodie passion. Check the calendar for options to stay on for regular supper clubs and feast nights.

Truro, 45 mins from Padstow 

Cook Thai with Natchaya Nak of My Mum Makes, tackle wild game with The Functional Foodie, and master steak and South American Fire Cooking with Ben Arthur. Visit Cornwall’s city for a one-off evening class at Truro School Cookery or make a day of it and dip into Truro’s cosmopolitan café and restaurant culture.

Penzance, 1 hour 30 mins from Padstow

The shoreline is a natural larder, and there’s plenty of ways to enjoy its ingredients on your coastal holiday. Explore West Cornwall with Fat Hen wild cookery school, gathering seaweed, samphire and shellfish, then learn how to cook them into wild coastal feasts. It’s well a day trip from Padstow and autumn events coming up include foraging along the coast path, followed by a hearty four-course wild lunch at The Gurnards Head. 

St Ives, 1 hour 15 mins from Padstow 

Sweet tooth? Put on your chocolatier hat and learn to make your own truffles and chocolate bars at I Should Coco’s workshop in St Ives. This fishing village turned art-and-foodie town is a must-do for an autumn day out in Cornwall – and this is the ideal workshop for an afternoon come rain or shine. Kids are welcome, too. 

Whether you want the perfect view for your hand-distilled gin sundowner, a fully-equipped kitchen to whip up a fresh seafood feast, or a cosy woodburner for autumn evenings, our holiday cottages in Padstow are made for budding chefs and foodie aficionados. 

Browse our collection of holiday cottages in Padstow, or give us a call if you want us to find the right fit for your cooking in Cornwall plans.