Half-Day Thai Cooking Class with Garden Kitchen & Pool – 5 Recipes
A half-day home-style Thai cooking class in a garden kitchen north of Chiang Mai: market visit, herb picking, five recipes and use of the swimming pool afterwards.
- Duration
- Half day (approx. 4.5 hours) – morning 08:30–13:00 or afternoon 15:00–19:30
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Max group
- 20 pax
This is the class to book if you want the cooking to feel like lunch at a friend's house. The kitchen is outdoors in a private garden in San Sai, north of the city, there is a swimming pool you are welcome to use, and non-cooking companions can come along, eat with the group and spend the morning by the water instead of at a wok.
You are collected from your hotel and taken first to a local fresh market for the ingredient briefing — herbs, curry pastes, produce, the difference between the chillies, how to buy and store the essentials. Back at the garden you pick fresh organic herbs and Thai eggplants from the beds yourself, then take an individual cooking station in the open-air kitchen.
Five recipes, and they are the five that matter: your own curry paste pounded in a granite mortar, a curry built from it, a soup, a stir-fry and a dessert. Because the school is small the instruction is genuinely one-to-one when you need it, and classes are taught with an international touch — English, French and Arabic breakfast options are offered. Rice is served as blue jasmine rice, coloured naturally with butterfly pea, and a proper espresso bar keeps the coffee coming alongside tea and mineral water.
Two departures run every day: a morning class with pick-up and drop-off between 08:30 and 13:00, and an afternoon class between 15:00 and 19:30. Both include free hotel transfer, all ingredients and a recipe e-book. Bring swimwear if you want to use the pool after lunch.
- Home-style garden kitchen with a swimming pool you can use
- Non-cooking companions welcome at a reduced rate — they eat and swim
- Guided local fresh-market visit
- Pick your own organic herbs and Thai eggplants from the garden
- Five recipes: your own curry paste, a curry, a soup, a stir-fry and a dessert
- Individual cooking station in an outdoor home kitchen
- Naturally blue jasmine rice, espresso-bar coffee, tea and mineral water
- Morning or afternoon departures daily, with free hotel transfer both ways
- Recipe e-book to take home
What's included
- ✓ Free hotel pick-up and drop-off
- ✓ Guided visit to a local fresh market
- ✓ Herb and vegetable picking in the organic garden
- ✓ All ingredients for five recipes
- ✓ Individual cooking station in the outdoor kitchen
- ✓ Cooking instructor
- ✓ Blue jasmine rice, espresso-bar coffee, tea and mineral water
- ✓ Recipe e-book
- ✓ Use of the swimming pool
- Alcoholic drinks
- Non-cooking guests (550 THB per person — includes the food and the pool)
- Towels for the pool (bring your own or ask on arrival)
- Gratuities
- Travel insurance
- 08:30
Hotel pick-up
Collected from your hotel for the morning class (afternoon class pick-up is from 15:00).
- 09:15
Local market visit
A guided walk through a fresh market to meet the herbs, pastes and produce of Thai cooking.
- 10:00
Garden arrival and herb picking
Arrive at the garden kitchen, walk the beds and pick fresh organic herbs and Thai eggplants for your dishes.
- 10:30
Curry paste
Take your station and pound your own curry paste in a granite mortar.
- 11:00
Soup and stir-fry
Cook a Thai soup and a wok dish at your own burner.
- 11:45
Curry and lunch
Finish your curry from the paste you made and sit down to the meal with naturally blue jasmine rice.
- 12:20
Dessert, e-book and the pool
A Thai dessert and coffee, your recipe e-book, then time by the swimming pool if you would like it.
- 13:00
Drop-off
Returned to your hotel (afternoon class finishes at 19:30).
Thai cooking classes of this style adapt easily — tofu and vegetables replace the meat and seafood and soy seasoning replaces fish sauce. Tell us your requirements at booking so we can confirm with the kitchen in advance.
You cook five recipes — a curry paste, a curry, a soup, a stir-fry and a dessert — choosing within each category from the day's menu.
Yes, and this is one of the few classes designed for it. A non-cooking guest pays 550 THB and is welcome to eat with the group and use the swimming pool while you cook.
Yes — free hotel pick-up and drop-off is included, 08:30–13:00 for the morning class and 15:00–19:30 for the afternoon class.
Light clothes you do not mind splashing and closed shoes rather than sandals — you will be at a wok and walking through a market and a farm. Aprons are provided; tie long hair back.
The content is the same. The morning class includes the market at its busiest and leaves your afternoon free; the afternoon class is cooler for cooking and finishes with dinner.
Yes if you want to use the pool — it is included and most guests swim after lunch.