Culture · Ubud
Balinese Cooking Class
Garden to table, with your host cook.
About the experience
Garden to table.
The class is not in a restaurant kitchen but in a family garden in the countryside outside Ubud. You start in the organic garden: lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, Balinese basil and chilli, picked where they grow. You learn which herb belongs in which dish on the way round.
The kitchen is an open pavilion. Everyone has their own station, their own mortar and their own wok — you are not watching, you are cooking. The menu is usually five dishes: bumbu bali spice paste, sate lilit, sayur urab, tempe manis and a dessert. Pounding the spice paste in a stone mortar is the longest and most enjoyable part of the class.
After four hours everything you cooked comes to one long table and you eat it together. The recipes are handed out in writing, and your host explains how to substitute the ingredients back home.
“Four hours, one table, the smell of seven spices.”
Highlights
Three things that set this class apart
The class begins in the garden, not at a market. You pick most of the herbs you cook with yourself.
Not a demonstration kitchen. You get your own mortar and wok and cook all five dishes yourself.
The class ends around a long table set with what you cooked. The recipes go home with you in writing.
Who it suits
Is this your kind of day
You’ll love it if
- Couples who cook at home
- Anyone who wants Balinese food from the inside, not just from a menu
- Vegetarians and vegans — the menu adapts completely
- Families with children 10 and up
Think twice if
- Anyone who cannot handle any heat (it is adjustable, but spice is the point)
- Anyone who’d rather not stand for four hours
- Anyone who doesn’t want an early start — the class begins around 08:30
- Anyone uncomfortable with knives and flame
Programme
How the day runs
-
09:00
Pickup
Transfer to a home kitchen in Ubud.
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09:30
Garden
Ingredient pick.
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10:15
Cooking
3–4 classic Balinese dishes.
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12:30
Table
Lunch together.
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13:30
Return
Leave with recipe cards.
Transparent price
What’s in, what’s not
Included
- Transfer
- All ingredients
- Lunch
- Recipe cards
Not included
- Alcohol
- Tips
Meet: Home kitchen in Ubud · Pickup from Canggu / Seminyak / Ubud.
Prepare
Bring with you
Good to know
Small, important notes
Peanut, shrimp paste and fish sauce are foundational in Balinese cooking. Tell us at booking and the menu is built differently from the start.
The whole menu can be made without meat or fish; sate lilit is made with tempeh. Just let us know in advance.
Free up to 48 hours. Ingredients are bought fresh that morning, so later cancellations cannot be refunded.
FAQ
Common questions
Shall we hold this day?
Once dates and group size are clear, we reply the same day.
Check availability on WhatsApp