Learn to Cook and Eat Chinese Delicacies

Black Sesame Kitchen

Preparing delicious regional dishes and enjoying them in a moonlit Beijing courtyard – Chinese dining doesn’t get more authentic than that. Thanks to Jen Lin-Liu, chef and author of memoir Serve the People: A Stir-fried Journey Through China, this fabulous private kitchen-cum-cooking school experience is now yours for the taking. Offering courses in both Beijing and Sichuan cuisine, Black Sesame Kitchen emphasises the use of fresh, seasonal ingredients from organic and non-GM sources both in class and on the table. And to prove it, you’ll not find a menu at BSK, what’s served that night is entirely determined by what’s available fresh in the market that very day.

Cooking classes are conducted bi-weekly, featuring a whole range of recipes from home-style dumplings and buns, to Shanxi noodles, and Sichuan delicacies like Kungpao Cashew Chicken. Themed classes are also a regular feature, so when Dragon Boat or Mid-Autumn Festivals are nigh, zhongzi and moon cakes will be the morsels du jour respectively. Cooking not your thing? No problem. Twice a week you can come along just to savour the recipes at the demonstration-only shows, where the chefs cook and you watch and eat. But be sure to book well in advance, as the waitlist for this 10-course gastronome’s delight can often soar upwards of a month long!