Ella Spice Garden Cooking School — Attraction in Uva Province

Excellent evening learning how to cook traditional Sri Lankan food from a funny and charismatic young chef!!

The classes are small, maximum of 8 people, it takes about three hours and concludes with a delicious meal. This place is run by a very knowledgeable, well spoken, witty, young Sri Lankan chief! His cooking class was a unique and enjoyable experience! The class takes place in the host's home, you start with a tour of the garden where various spices are grown, from there you venture into the sitting room for a cup of tea while you are given an introducion to the various spices you will be cooking with. Finally it's to the small but charming kitchen where you will be put to work.

At the start of the cooking class each of us were given a partially complete cooking booklet which we filled out as the evening progressed. Our host introduced us to ingredients, walked us through multiple dishes and prompted us the fill in the missing quantities as we progressed through each dish. We pealed, washed, grated, chopped and stired! The classes were fun and informative. Our host was also hilarious, with a very quick witted sense of humour and a devious grin which made the evening in my opinion.

I can't imagine you will find a better cooking class in Ella than this, it was a...

During our short stay in Ella, we had read a lot about trying out a cooking class as part of the top things to do whilst visiting. And we decided to go with Ella Spice Garden having read the reviews online, and we can honestly say hand on heart, what a fantastic experience. From the moment you arrive, until you leave, our host and chef, Theeka, was welcoming, funny and so so talented! He made sure everyone got involved, and was so thorough in explaining the backgrounds not just of the spices used, but of the cooking method involved of what turned out to be an amazing culinary experience.

Sri Lankan cuisine is amongst the top on our list, and we are now blessed to have learnt how to prepare several dishes and to take our knowledge back to the little town of sitges where we live. By far our favourite had to be the vegan garlic curry. Spoiler alert: the answer to how many garlic cloves go in this curry isn’t 10 or 12. You’ll have to try out his class to find out.

You will also start by visiting his spice garden where many ingredients are grown locally and you have the possibility of purchasing afterwards (we completely forgot, sorry !!)

Thank you Theeka and your team for a memory that will last forever. Now time to put what we have learnt...

I've done several cooking classes in different countries around the world. This was definitely one of the best ones, where you left with the feeling to have learned something.

You and up to seven other students will spend 2-3 hours in a family home kitchen preparing four curry dishes. It's a bit less hands-on then other cooking classes I've done, but the chef made sure that everyone took turns doing the chores and quizzing us about what he taught us.

He is a great and entertaining teacher, making sure that the knowledge sinks in. One way to ensure that is by providing everyone with a fill-in-the-blanks cookbook which we filled out during class. And - contrary to other cooking classes I've done around the world - the recipes in the book are very precise down to every little detail. I'm feeling more than confident that I'll be able to cook those dishes at home!

From the recipes we cooked the dhal and potato curries were my favorite and nothing short of the great dishes I had at other Sri Lankan restaurants.

If I wouldn't feel confident to prepare those dishes already, I would instantly go...