Great cookery classes at L'atelier des Chefs

Love cooking and eating? Then you'll love the cooking classes at L'atelier des Chefs. There are a variety of classes, and they cater for individuals, groups, corporate events. So whether you're there to hone your own skills, or there to do 'team building', there's a class for you.

I recently went to two classes - pasta making ('fresh pasta') and steak cookery ('cook the perfect steak') - and both were great fun! Good times were had and the food tasted great.

The Chef was a great teacher. It's not easy to look after a class of (around 10) strangers, but he struck the balance well - friendly, helpful, patient and informative.

The Chef giving us a demo of the pasta machine.

The pasta class involved making the pasta dough from scratch, rolling it out, turning it into tortellini and ravioli, making the filling and the sauce.  The class took about two hours but the time went by real quick. We then finished the night by eating our own food - tasty! This was the result...

My second class involved cooking the perfect steak...and making a cheesecake. As with the pasta class, everything was cooked from scratch, including the potatoes, garlic butter, caramel and piping the cheese. While it was not the most technically demanding course, it was still great fun and the results were excellent - both dishes tasted excellent. Best steak in London that night? Maybe!

Hopefully it won't be long before I get to go to another class. They have a 'knife skills' class and I've recently acquired a rather sharp Japanese knife from Kataba, and I'd like to be able to get the most out of it. Watch this space...

Burger and Lobster: simple concept, great for lobster lovers

Burger and Lobster is a chain of five restaurants in London focussing on - you guessed it - burgers and lobsters.

Choosing your food at Burger and Lobster is pretty simple and there are just three things on the mains menu: [1] lobster in a brioche roll (lobster roll), [2] cooked whole lobster (grilled or boiled) and [3] beef burger.  All dishes come with fries and mixed salad.  So the concept is pretty simple.

Seeing as everything is £20, I felt the obvious choice was to order one of the two lobster dishes. I went with the lobster roll, while the girlfriend ordered the grilled lobster.

The lobster roll was excellent. Cool (as in not hot) and tasty chunks of lobster were neatly tucked into a soft yet robust brioche roll - the slight sweetness of the brioche working well in tandem with the lobster.

Lobster roll.

The fries were very crispy and nicely seasoned with salt, while the mixed salad was simple and lightly covered with parmesan.

The girlfriend's grilled lobster came complete with shell cracker and pick, plus a plastic bib! Extracting all the meat from a lobster is always enjoyable - much easier than crab meat.  The girlfriend really enjoyed it.

Grilled lobster.

As the restaurant does not actually have a menu, we had not realised desserts were available. Again, it's a simple choice. You can either get cheesecake topped with what appears to be broken Oreo biscuits, or an Eton Mess.

I really enjoyed the simple concept of Burger and Lobster and I'll certainly want to go back to try the grilled lobster. While the restaurant is extremely busy - even on a weekday - service and arrival of food is pretty quick, no doubt helped by the simple menu.

Nearest Tube: Bank or St Paul's