A cook’s tour

Friends in Singapore are often heard to boast that their street food is so good and economical that they need never cook. But when food is all around you, so much of it and so many kinds, it’s hard to sit on your hands and not try to recreate it at home. The yen to ‘try this at home’ is stronger still for us tourists, for whom (lack of) access quickly becomes a sore point. Enter Ruqxana Vasanwala’s Cookery Magic and its much-acclaimed cooking class in a 100-year-old kampong house on Pulau Ubin, a small island off the coast of Singapore (S$130 for kampong class; cookerymagic.com). Or consider the posher Shermay’s Cooking School in Holland Village, including a fantastic array of bakery and confectionery courses (from S$50 for 2 hours; shermay.com). There’s also the more rigorous cooking studio of Coriander Leaf (from S$135 for 3.5 hours; corianderleaf.com) at a spectacular Clarke Quay address, and a great rotation of professionals at Palate Sensations (from S$120 for 3 hours; palatesensations.com). And that’s just the tip of the Merlion’s tail, as you go forth and cook up a red-dot storm!