Cook, Feast, and Take a Piece of Bali Home at CasCades Cooking Class

Cook, Feast, and Take a Piece of Bali Home at CasCades Cooking Class
 

There are many ways to experience a culture, but few as immediate or as lasting as learning to cook its food.

At CasCades Restaurant, perched above the Valley of the Kings within Viceroy Bali, a hands-on cooking class turns that idea into something you can taste, smell, and carry home. It is one of the most immersive culinary activities available in Ubud, and it begins not in a kitchen, but in a garden.

From Greenhouse to Kitchen

Every class starts with a guided stroll through CasCades' on-site greenhouse, where many of the herbs and aromatics used in the restaurant's kitchen are grown. It is a grounding way to begin: understanding where ingredients come from before you transform them into a dish. Lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, galangal, kemangi: names that appear throughout Indonesian cooking suddenly become tangible, fragrant, and real.

From the greenhouse, participants move into the kitchen alongside one of CasCades' skilled chefs, where the real work and the real pleasure begin.

Choose Your Own 3-Course Journey

One of the most distinctive features of the CasCades cooking class is that guests choose their own menu. Rather than following a fixed programme, each participant selects three dishes from the master cooking class menu to create a personalised 3-course experience that includes a starter, a soup or a vegetable dish, and a main.

Starters range from Gado-Gado, the beloved Indonesian salad served with a rich ground-peanut sauce, to Sate Lilit, Balinese fish skewers made from minced mahi-mahi, wrapped around lemongrass, marinated in Bumbu Bali, and grilled over charcoal. There is also Rujak Bali, a traditional Balinese fruit salad dressed in a bold palm sugar and tamarind sauce, and Bakwan Jagung, crispy corn fritters with kaffir lime leaf served alongside a sambal kecap dipping sauce.

For the soup or vegetable course, choices include the comforting Soto Ayam with its golden bumbu-based broth, the slow-simmered Sop Buntut, or the light and fragrant Sayur Lodeh, vegetables cooked in coconut milk with Balinese spice paste.

Main courses bring the full depth of Indonesian cooking to the table. Beef Rendang is slow-cooked in coconut milk with whole spices until the liquid reduces into a dark, intensely flavoured coating. Nasi Goreng and Mie Goreng offer the familiar and beloved, fried rice and fried noodles done with proper technique and a housemade premix seasoning. Pepes Ikan Bakar wraps seabass in banana leaves with bumbu kuning and kemangi leaf before grilling. And Ayam Panggang, char-grilled chicken marinated in sambal uleg honey, brings a smoky sweetness that is entirely its own.

Each dish comes with guidance on the spice pastes that make Indonesian cooking so layered. From Bumbu Bali and Bumbu Kuning to Sambal Uleg and Sambal Matah, each is built from the mortar upward, layer by layer, revealing a distinct spectrum of flavour and a different expression of Indonesia’s culinary tradition.

Savour What You Have Made

After cooking, guests are seated at a special table in the restaurant to enjoy the three-course meal they have prepared. The open-walled pavilion frames its familiar view of the jungle ravine, and the meal arrives not just as food, but as proof of something learned.
The same valley that sets the scene at CasCades by day takes on an entirely different character. The light shifted through the canopy, the valley air carrying the scent of the surrounding forest.

Something to Take Home

At the end of the class, participants receive a certificate of completion and a set of recipes to take with them, so that the tastes of Bali do not have to stay in Bali. Whether it is the peanut sauce from the Gado-Gado or the charred memory of Sate Lilit, the recipes allow you to return to the experience long after the trip ends.

Vegetarian and kids cooking class options are also available, making it a genuinely flexible activity for different travellers and groups.

Practical Information

The CasCades cooking class runs weekly and requires advance reservation.
Reservations via WhatsApp: +62 (361) 972111
Mastering your traditional cooking skills with CasCades Restaurant now.

CasCades Restaurant

Jalan Lanyahan, Banjar Nagi, Ubud, Bali
www.cascadesbali.com | @cascadesbali