Learn Ceremonial Balinese Recipes in a Lush Ubud Garden Cooking Class

Over ons

Tresna means "love" in Balinese. Our school is built out of love. It would be a mistake to see us as “just another cooking class”. We are NOT an afterthought in a hotel’s restaurant or a table set up in someone’s family compound. We flipped the concept on its head and built our cooking school from the ground up.

Imagine chopping and mixing in a dream kitchen that’s clean, hygienic and functional. You'll pick the freshest ingredients in an organic garden that Adi’s planted. You'll learn recipes - not found anywhere else in Bali - unique Ceremonial and home-cooked dishes. With our shared love of food and cooking, you will delve into hands-on lessons that feature your hands, not ours.

Authentic Balinese Home Cooking
Real Balinese food is a well-hidden secret from tourists. Why? Real Balinese Food is elaborate Ceremonial Food. Or it’s the simplest food cooked behind the walls of a family compound. Our menus are Adi’s original recipes of traditional favourites - honed over decades of cooking for loved ones. We have 38 Recipes where you’ll learn 14 of them in one morning! You’ll cook authentic Balinese Ceremonial dishes as well as family home-cooked dishes. You’ll personally taste and pick the freshest of ingredients from our gardens!

Riverside Gardens

Our riverside land is pure virgin jungle and completely organic. You can practically taste the goodness in everything you pick! Look up and you’ll see towering coconut trees and mature tropical fruit trees such as durian, jackfruit, and rambutan. Beyond our beautiful location, we’re systemic in our approach. Having organized some of the most exclusive weddings on the island, we are applying our event expertise to our passion – authentic Balinese food and traditional living culture. Join us in our riverside garden where you pick your very own organic ingredients, using it in the freshest dishes moments later. We redefine "plant to platter" with food, grown steps away from our table.

Your experience

Our class menus are a celebration of the freshest ingredients of that season and that day. Adi will teach you his step-by-step recipes that he’s honed over 3 decades. You’ll be immersed in a hands-on cooking class, learning 15 authentic Balinese recipes, not found anywhere else. You'll get an "inside" view of real Balinese life – learning the secrets of Balinese ceremony and the special role of food in Temple offerings.

Our intimate class size is limited to 8 guests.  

Start by gathering unusual ingredients from our organic gardens. Each of you will have your very own cooking station for making spices, and shared stations for the dishes. You’ll cook 2 salads, 4 mains, 2 sides, 1 dessert and several spicy sambals. We guarantee that you can repeat all of our dishes at home if you have access to Asian supermarkets with fresh ingredients.

Menu

Balinese Ceremonial Feast Menu of the Day (may change on the actual day, based on the freshest ingredients available)

You'll learn 16 recipes including our special spice pastes for a huge Balinese Feast, not found anywhere else on this island.

We limit our classes to a maximum of 8 cooks with a minimum age of 13 years old with solid cooking and the ability to handle a knife safely.

***We have two small dogs who are in the class and we cannot lock them away. If you're not okay with dogs, please do not book this class***

• Adi’s Base Ganep (Complete Balinese Spice Paste) - Our ceremonial spice paste with 18 ingredients, many that you pick from our organic gardens
• Base Rajang (Fragrant Spice Paste) - A lighter spice paste perfect for vegetables and tofu
• Sambal Goreng - A traditional staple in every Balinese Family Compound
• Base Kacang - You make homemade peanut sauce from scratch
• Homemade Coconut Milk - Freshly extracted from coconuts, harvested from our mature coconut trees
• Sambal Tomat- rich and deep tomato spice paste of Lombok chilies straight from our gardens
• Perkedel Jagung- Homemade corn fritters with Balinese spices and egg
• Jukut Mecantok - Organic greens including amaranth, snake beans, cabbage, carrot, baby mung bean sprouts with your very own homemade peanut sauce
• Urab Salad - Wild ferns, Gonda (indigenous vegetable), and baby spouts with roasted coconut, kaffir lime juice, and golden shallots
• Satay Babi Tusuk - Skewered Balinese Pork Satay - Marinated pork shoulder with the traditional spice paste and grilled over coconut husks
• Ayam Kalas - Hand-shredded grilled chicken in freshly extracted coconut cream sauce
• Ayam Panggang Sambal Matah - Grilled butterflied chicken with lemongrass, shallot, chili and kaffir lime in homemade coconut oil dressing
• Pepes Ikan – Fillets of fresh sea bass or red snapper and spicy handmade tomato sambal wrapped and grilled in Banana Leaves
• Tempe Manis - Sweet and spicy tempe matchsticks
• Dadar Gulung - Coconut Pandan Crepes with coconut and palm sugar

Schema

• 8:30 am: Meet at Tresna Bali Cooking School. Your driver CAN drive all the way down to our school. The laneway is narrow at the top, but we have a parking area for him to turn around. If your driver drops you at the Temple Jakson, please walk 150 metres down the narrow road. There are local dogs who will bark as you pass. Just ignore them.
• 8:35 am: Refreshments and Organic Garden Tour
• 9:15 am: Hands-On Cooking Lesson of 9 Authentic BALINESE Dishes
• 12:30 pm: Lunch Feast
• 1:45 pm: Class ends

If you are a solo traveler and you are interested in this class, click here