9 Best Cooking Classes in Bali

Bumbu Bali is one of the leading cooking classes on the island. It's the brainchild of Heinz von Holzen, a former 5-star resort executive chef and author of numerous pioneering books on Balinese cuisine. The classes offer a fun introduction to Bali’s exotic ingredients and unique culinary heritage.

You’ll start off early for a morning visit to the Jimbaran fish and village market with Heinz himself, shopping for the many ingredients to bring back to the Bumbu Bali class in Tanjung Benoa. After a light breakfast of traditional cakes, fruits and Balinese black rice pudding and rice flour dumplings, the recipe copies are handed out and the cooking fun begins. At lunchtime, your creations are served with more insights and reviews. The day concludes with your Balinese Master Chef’s certificate presentations and a class celebration.

Bali Asli is a restaurant and cooking school is where former 5-star resort executive chef Penny Williams continues to share her passion for East Bali and Balinese cuisine. It’s located in Gelumpang village of the Karangasem, about half-an-hour from Candidasa and Amed. By embracing the local communities of fishermen and farmers, Bali Asli promotes the island’s cuisine and gives back to the locals.

With a traditional Balinese-style kitchen, complete with wood-fired mud brick stoves, Bali Asli provides cooking classes that include more than just tours to local village markets. You also get to embark on mini adventures to exotic places off the beaten track, seeing rice planting or ‘steering’ Balinese cows ploughing the rice fields, as well as going out to sea in a jukung outrigger for the catch, and cooking on an open fire. It’s also one of the few places where you can learn to make cocktails from cashew nut wine.

A culinary institution in Ubud, Casa Luna is the brainchild of Janet de Neefe, a naturalised Balinese and lover of the island’s cuisine who has published a series of memoirs and cookbooks. She’s also the founder and driving force behind the annual Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. The classes, often conducted by Janet herself, take place at one of the enterprise’s Honeymoon Guesthouses on Jalan Bisma, southwest of the royal palace and main Ubud hub.

You’ll actively help prepare your own lavish Balinese feast, to be enjoyed with a glass or 2 of local rice wine or homemade hibiscus tea. Casa Luna Cooking School provides different choices of schedules, from long-table dinners, classes with morning market tours to special dish highlights such as a Sunday twilight smoked duck class.

Part of the Anika accommodation and dining enterprise in Tuban, Anika Cooking Class offers sessions that let you discover traditional techniques and the variety of herbs and spices in a modern restaurant setting. Its makeshift pantry corner mimics a traditional Balinese kitchen with decorated interiors and displays showing traditional ingredients and utensils.

An early morning tour takes you to the village market in Kuta. Back at Anika’s kitchen in Tuban, you’ll enjoy a breakfast of traditional cakes before the cooking class begins. Besides learning about the process the ingredients, you’ll also pick up new techniques for using the various utensils. By lunchtime, you’ll enjoy your creation of 9 main Balinese dishes and 1 traditional dessert, accompanied by hibiscus tea and Balinese rice wine.

The Balinese cooking class at The Amala is a great option if you’re up for some learning fun in local culinary arts while in Seminyak. The class is one of the great activities that both in-house and outside guests can experience at the resort.

Classes are held at the resort’s Bamboo Restaurant, and are conducted by resident Balinese chef Wayan Putra, who’s passionate about his island’s heritage cuisine, and keen on sharing the secrets and techniques. Unlike other cooking classes, it doesn’t include trips to a fresh market – you simply put on an apron and get straight into cooking.

Paon Bali Cooking Class is a great activity for foodies, especially for those interested in learning more about the varied ingredients and unique techniques that go into preparing traditional Balinese cuisine. The classes are hosted by Balinese couple Wayan and Puspa in their home that’s located in the cool and quaint upland village of Petulu, around a 10-minute drive up from the Ubud central.

Jambangan Bali Cooking Class is a popular cooking class in the cool and scenic highland village of Tegallalang, around 15 minutes’ drive up from the main hub of Ubud. The cooking class introduces you to tropical herbs and spices, as well as the exotic ingredients involved in traditional Balinese cuisine.

Unique to Jambangan Bali Cooking Class is the fact that they make their class sizes very small, to allow for better interaction and hands-on experience. The impression of you merely watching a cooking demo is as far from reality here as you can get.

Lobong Culinary Experience offers Balinese cooking classes and cultural encounters in the upland village of Kedewatan, around 15 minutes’ drive northwest from the main Ubud hub. It offers a hands-on approach to learning about the island’s heritage cuisine, with classes held within a well-kept traditional Balinese family compound, and hosted by the charming owners themselves. 

Besides cooking classes, they also offer nature treks through the village’s surrounding rice paddies, as well as visits to a local priest’s home to learn about Balinese astrology.

Warung Eny may seem a very local setup but, surprisingly, it’s a popular spot that has attracted guests from all over the world. It pulls in those who are looking for something authentically Balinese amid the big and fancy western restaurants of Jalan Petitenget. Most importantly, Warung Eny shares valuable knowledge through its cooking classes.

Self-dubbed as the ‘Love Cooking School’ by its namesake founder Ibu Eny and her husband Wayan, Warung Eny is the best local family-run enterprise in Seminyak where you can learn about and enjoy authentic, local, homemade cuisine. Besides learning new techniques and blending spices in the kitchen with Eny and her daughters, you can get involved with turning and basting their king prawns at the front smoking grill for a fun roadside evening barbecue.