Spice Up Your Life

Eating at some of the best restaurants in London has its perks but being able to cook with the chef and create your own restaurant quality meal is even better.

So, with top Indian restaurant Moti Mahal offering cookery classes with its head chef, we popped down one Saturday to have a go at cooking up an adventurous Indian meal ourselves.

Chef Anirudh Arora, or Ani as he like to be called, takes us through a two hour class which has us learning about spices, sprinkling herbs into dishes and crushing vegetables. Learning how to make a proper lamb curry with saffron rice is a more enlightening experience than you'd think. The right balance of spices and the tricks of the trade it takes to make the rice that soft and the lamb that tender are all things we attempt to take in and take home.

For someone who enjoys cooking but turns a simple domestic kitchen into a minefield of pots, pans, sauces and leftovers, the operation of cooking for a restaurant full of people is pretty spectacular.
Ani is a delight to watch with his passion for the food as clear as his instructions. We watch and learn and get involved but the longer we do it the hungrier we get.

Sitting down to a three course meal we are joined by a wine connoisseur who matches the wines to the dishes. The food, which is always of a superb standard at Moti Mahal, then arrives and knowing how its been made and having seen every spice go in makes the experience even better.

We left with our knowledge of Indian cookery (and our waistlines) enhanced. Later we had a go at making a chicken supreme later that week and though it wasn't exactly like Ani's the dish impressed guests no end.

Gather a group of friends or take a partner to experience the a fun and informal two-hour cookery class, followed by a three-course lunch with wine tasting thrown in too. At £55 per person this is incredibly good value and a superb way to liven up the weekend.