Discover our kitchen
The Jungle Kitchen is an ideal location for an introduction to Thai cooking. You can feel the nature around you. You just know it will taste better when you can pick and taste the fresh herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables used in class from the gardens around. And you won’t be disappointed.
Whatever the weather, the Jungle Kitchen is a great place for a class. When it’s too hot on the coast, you’ll notice it’s three or four degrees cooler up at Chilling Hill, and you’ll notice a cooling mountain breeze which flows through the kitchen. When it’s raining, the atmosphere develops with the sound of the rain and the jungle in the kitchen.
The kitchen has been purpose built for teaching small groups of students in a beautiful setting. No electricity is used in the class; cooking is with charcoal and with gas. Natural materials are used throughout the kitchen and give a real sense of a working kitchen from 50 years ago.
The Jungle Kitchen first opened its’ doors in August 2019. The kitchen is run by Thai national Lin who has a long history in a Thai food, starting as an eight year old child working in her grandmothers kitchen helping to preparing large pots of curry for sale on the local markets around her home town. Since then, Lin has had a varied career involving working in, opening and running and opening various restaurants, and as a Thai language teacher. Now Lin has come back to teaching, but Thai food rather than language and able to use the country style cooking knowledge she gained through her early years.
The idea of the Jungle Kitchen came about when Lin and her partner Tom were spending a lot of time at Chilling Hill and looking to find other ways to let people enjoy their time in the gardens. Tom had stumbled onto Chilling Hill while exploring the island and become friends with the owners Dee and Nan. Lin fell in love with the location as it reminded her of her home in the mountains in the North of Thailand.
Tom is a keen cook and provided many of the ideas and inspiration for the kitchen set and is the driving force behind the idea of banishing plastic from the kitchen. Tom spends a lot of time at Chilling Hill and can often be found talking to the visitors in English, French, German or even trying hard with Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong where he grew up.
Both Lin & Tom show a passion for their creation and spend a lot of time sourcing sustainable materials for use in the kitchen along with tools used in the kitchens of times gone by.
