Dublin Cookery School - 3 Month Professional Certificate Course

I completed recently the 3-month professional cookery course and it was honestly one of the best experiences of my life! Waking up every day knowing that my day would revolve around learning, cooking and eating delicious food, was one of the best feelings for an assumed and proud foodie, and chef wannabe!
The quality of teaching is amazing. All the tutors are incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, and each one of them brings something unique and special to the school, either in the way they teach, or in the stories they tell you about their culinary adventures around the world and how these contributed to the person/chef they are today.
One thing that made me choose this course in particular was the fact that it did not focus on a particular type of cuisine; it seemed diversified enough to keep things interesting and exciting. In fact, I learned about so many different cuisines: from Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Indian, French, Italian, and Moroccan, among others. Now I feel that I have the fundamental knowledge to cook dishes with completely different ingredient combinations and flavor profiles and make it work!
On top of all of this, I got to the opportunity to learn about all these different and exciting culinary techniques, from bread and pasta making, tempering chocolate, smoking food, etc.
The course also encompasses several wine and cheese workshops that are extremely valuable in building up your food knowledge! The pop-up restaurant nights, in which the students and tutors work together to serve a 5-course meal to over 70 paying customers are no easy task, but ultimately a very rewarding learning experience!
Now that it is over, I wish I could go back to the school bubble and continue learning about food in such a relaxed and informative environment, but the real culinary journey awaits for me! Definitely recommend this course to the foodies out there who eat, breath and sleep food, and want to be better cooks, or for those who dream about a culinary career. This is the first step =)

I just completed the three month certificate program at Dublin Cookery School. It was a wonderful experience. The tutors were knowledgeable, experienced and helpful. The guest chefs were excellent. Lynda has a wealth of information to offer. We were able to stage at the best restaurants in Dublin. I already miss spending my days at the school. I recommend this program to anyone interested in the culinary arts.

I went to the 3 month certificate course at Dublin Cookery School from September-December 2016. I already had a great interest in food and cooking, but was super excited to get started. I really did not know what to expect, but the director of the School, Lynda (who by the way is extremely nice, warm and including), called me for a long chat before I went there, and gave me all the details i wanted to know.
The cost of the whole project was high, as housing in Dublin is expencieve, but knowing what I know now I would easily have paid even more to go. In the school you eat a lot, and you use high quality foods and ingredients all along, so I really don't think it is possible to find anything cheaper if you really want to learn how to use the good stuff and become a good chef.
During the course we also went on trips to other places in Ireland, and I was also staging in a very fancy restaurant (it just got a Michelin star!!) for a week, which was incredible. Some of the best chefs in Dublin came regularly to the school and taught us their secrets in the kitchen, and it was very cool to go to their restaurants after that and talk to the head chef feeling you knew him/her.
The staff in the school (especially Sally) was extremely helpful with whatever I asked/needed, and they really took the job of making my stay interesting seriously.
I feel I learned loads, and became a hell of a lot better in the kitchen, confident to cook high end meals for every occation during the course (did i mention you get to eat it??)

Dublin is also a vibrant city, with everything you could possible want available while abroad. There is nightlife, loads of very high end restaurants, museums, tours, etc everywhere, and Ireland also have loads of beautiful natural scenery in close proximity (its a small country!) to Dublin.

All in all, I would highly recommend the 3 month course (I wish it was longer...) at Dublin Cookery School, and would be happy to share my experiences if someone is considering going, but need a motivational push.

I was came to Ireland right after I graduated high school do start my gap year. I chose to do the three month certification course and I couldn't be happier that I did. The school helped find a host family to accommodate me during my stay which was a lovely 15 minute walk from the school. We got to cook new and exciting foods daily, learned how to cook a wide variety of cultural foods such as Indian, Thai, French, Italian, and so much more. The tutors are always extremely helpful and make sure that you come out of the course as a successful cook. My favorite part about the course was that we were exposed to so many different opportunities: working in top restaurants of Dublin for a week, foraging, wine and cheese tasting classes, chocolatrier day, pop-up restaurant nights, and special guest chefs coming in to the school. I would recommend this to everyone and all. Great program both if you are interested in entering the cooking industry or just want to accumulate more knowledge and skills on cooking.

Have you ever dreamt of packing your bags and jetting off to Ireland for a few months, leaving all your worries behind and experiencing a dream come true?
I did. And it was amazing.
My dream, or rather my pipe dream as I first thought it was, was to attend cooking school in Ireland. The Dublin Cookery School, owned and run by the very talented chef, Lynda Booth, advertised a three month intensive certificate course. I spent years, literally, drooling over the website and reading everything I could about it. Never thinking I would ever actually be able to go. And then, my circumstances changed and I made it work. It was a financial challenge for sure, but one I thought would be worth it. We cannot after all take our money when we leave this life for the next. I had come to view life and the pursuit of our dreams as a very important thing to do, if at all possible. The last five years of my life had been a challenge with the loss of both of my parents, loss of my job, relationship troubles and my own cancer diagnosis. If it weren’t the time to live life to its fullest, when would it be? So, I took the leap. I financed the money, I paid my way, set up lodging with my favourite Auntie in Dublin and boarded the plane. I was nervous! What if it wasn’t what I’d dreamed it would be? What if I didn’t like it or if the people were unpleasant? I pushed all of those thoughts aside and became determined that the next three months were going to be fantastic. And do you know what? They were.
I’m home now for close to a year, back in Ontario, Canada. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the wonderful experience I had at the Dublin Cookery School and all of the wonderful people I met of all ages and from all over the world – many of whom I hope to remain friends with and see again soon. Most of all and best of all was the food I learned to make and the time I was able to spend with my aunt and cousins in Ireland.
I can’t express how wonderful it was to wake up each day and make my way to the school, to set-up my cooking area with my partner for the day and to get to work on preparing some of the best foods I have ever tasted; and I had made it!
The school is clean, sleek and modern. It felt like arriving home each day and instead of feeling like work, I felt like I was just taking on a new adventure, one that I always looked forward to. I learned so many new recipes and ways of doing things in the kitchen to improve upon taste, quality, time, technique and aesthetics. Skills that I continue to use in my daily life and bring with me into the work I now do in product development and in helping people find that delicious balance between eating healthy and truly enjoying food. It was a fantastic discovery for myself that I could, at least while in Ireland, enjoy bread and pasta again. Being told I was gluten intolerant following my cancer diagnosis, I thought I was done with real bread forever. I love bread! I didn’t want to give it up. So, I decided I wouldn’t give it up, not at least while I was at the school. I would just see what happened. And nothing did. I felt great! Turns out, it all came down to what we add to our North American Flour to make it produce breads and pastas more quickly. What a shame. So many people are suffering now and it predominantly comes down to additives. Some of my favourite days at the school were spent making bread with an expert baker and learning to make cheese!
We hosted 3 pop-up restaurant nights and they were not only skill testing but fun and a great way to show off what we had been learning. Plus we were able to work alongside our tutors as a team and not just student/teacher. The feeling of teamwork, comradery and accomplishment was great. The whole experience was in my estimation money well spent. Yes, it was a lot of money that I had to plan for – plan to save and plan to pay back – but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if I could. Best part is that I had a job almost immediately after coming home. I now work as a product developer and marketer for a company back home. I love it! I use my skills almost everyday.
Thank you Lynda, and everyone at the Dublin Cookery School and all of my family and new friends for helping to make my three months an experience to last a lifetime.

I always had a passion for food, and a desire from a young age to explore and experiment with the many flavours and shared experiences it can bring. First I learnt from my mother. It wasn't long before I mastered homemade scones while helping out in my parents B&B in the west of Ireland! For a while I was unsure where would be the best place for me to develop as a home cook, a chef, and simply as a lover of food until one day I heard about the Dublin Cookery School. It was late one night and I stumbled across an article on the school and there was a fire set alight in me. I knew this was the place for me but I decided to visit the school, to be sure to be sure! I needed a place where the focus was on hands-on cooking sprinkled with demos from engaging and inspiring tutors. I needed a place where I could be free and confident enough to experiment but also shown more traditional and time-tested approaches. I needed tutors from a diverse range of culinary backgrounds, all experts at their various skill-sets but also considering themselves still learning, ever curious! I needed a school that knew the best chefs and restaurant owners in the country. I needed to be exposed to best guest chefs! I needed to be surrounded by passionate, fun and dedicated students. I found all of this and much more at the Dublin Cookery School. To enroll I went to visit the school in the lovely town of Blackrock along the gorgeous Dublin coastline, nestled somewhere between Howth, Bray, the Wicklow Mountains and of course beautiful Dublin City. Wonderful fresh, homegrown produce and inspiration in every direction, be it sea or land. On one day we foraged with a local chef and discovered just what a variety of wild produce lay right under our noses all along the coastline and in nearby woods and urban areas. On another occasion we all visited an oyster farm in Waterford, where I shucked and tasted the freshest I had ever had, with buttery soda bread and a sprinkle of lemon. Such great ingredients don't require too much flourish! After this we had visit to a local brewery which was such an educational and delicious experience! We had now Michelin starred chefs come visit the school and teach for the day. We had people in to advise us on how to set up a food business. We had expert bakers come in to demonstrate the science of baking beautiful, mouth-watering bread sharing with us everything he learned in his time studying these traditional skills in France. We visited another cookery school to spend a day under its head chef. We had an opportunity to cook for the public once a month allowing us to demonstrate all the skills we had been working so hard to develop. On these days the school operated as a fully fledged "Pop-Up" restaurant and the sense of camaraderie and teamwork was palpable. We banded together and learned how a kitchen needs to work as one big harmonious organism with each person taking responsibility for their own station while ensuring no chef falls behind! This experience really stood me well when it came time for me to join a professional kitchen. During the three months I made friends from all over the world and friends that I will hold dearly for the rest of my life. The school staff has remained in regular contact and continued to provided me with a whole host of new job opportunities both home and abroad. You've probably gathered from all the above sentiments that I had an absolutely wonderful experience at the Dublin Cookery School, I loved my days there and I feel I could talk about it all day! I finished the certificate course back in March of 2015 but I still tell stories from my days there. If you are considering it, I recommend it so, so much. It was everything I hoped for and more. The level of experience was so broad and rich that I felt it was a remarkably good investment of my time, effort and money. It opened up so many doors for me. It introduced me to so many great people. The Dublin food scene is a wonderful melting pot of stellar chefs and passionate foodies all delving into a colorful palette of some of the best, fresh produce the world has to offer. Whether you want to do this as a career or simply take this as an opportunity to learn a whole set of eternally useful life-skills during your gap year (like me) why not learn from the best and do it in such a beautiful setting. And, trust me your family and friends will be forever grateful for the skills you will develop! Working in a kitchen is not just about cooking, it teaches you about teamwork, effective communication, interpersonal skills, time management, working under pressure, creative problem solving and the list goes on. What future employer would not admire such a list of personal qualities? Whatever future endeavors should you embrace all these skills will stand to you. That's all from me for now, hopefully I haven't kept you too long. I just want to say go for it! It was the best three months I ever had, both challenging and rewarding and I'd do it all over again with pleasure.