Surrey Hills · Silent Pool
There are many Indian cooking classes. This is a small, founder-led one, in a barn above Silent Pool, and it is deliberately kept that way.
The cookery experiences happen in the 400-year-old barn at Mandira's Kitchen, where guests cook together, work with proper spices, and sit down to eat what they have made around one table.
We start properly, with chai and warm samosas, because nobody should cook hungry. Then it is spices: how to buy them, store them, and actually use them, followed by tempering, tasting and adjusting until it is right.
Spaces are kept small on purpose, so everyone cooks, tastes and learns properly. They sell out fast.
A barn above one of England's strangest pools
Silent Pool is a spring-fed former chalk quarry on the Albury Estate, so still and so clear it looks lit from below. Tennyson came here to think. Agatha Christie's car was found just up the hill at Newlands Corner in 1926. Our barn sits on the track just above all of it, where pilgrims once walked the old North Downs way and the smell of ground cardamom now drifts across the hills by mid-morning. Four hundred years a cowshed. These days, something rather better fed.
Good questions, briefly answered
What happens in an Indian cookery experience here?
You start with chai and samosas, learn how to buy, store and use spices, then cook a full Indian menu hands-on with Mandira and the team, and sit down together to eat it in the barn.
How big are the groups?
Intentionally small, so everyone gets hands-on time. Spaces are limited and tend to sell out, so early booking is advised.
Is it suitable for beginners?
Yes. The classes demystify spices and technique from the ground up and are enjoyed by complete beginners as well as confident cooks.
Where does it take place?
In the barn at Mandira's Kitchen, Silent Pool, Shere Road, Albury, Surrey GU5 9BW. Park in the Silent Pool car park and register at the cafe for free parking.
Explore upcoming cookery experiences
Open seven days a week, on the track above Silent Pool.
Explore upcoming cookery experiences →