In June 2022 I did a hands-on cooking class at the Agrarian kitchen in New Norfolk. This full-day experience (9am – 4pm) included a delicious lunch, cooked by the class under the watchful eye and expert tutelage of Rodney Dunn.
In 2008 Rodney and his wife Séverine Demanet began conducting cooking classes at their Agrarian Kitchen Cooking School using their home kitchen on the family farm in New Norfolk. Immensely passionate about fresh produce and sustainability, they created a unique paddock-to-plate experience. The classes were booked out in advance.
In 2017 they opened the Agrarian Kitchen restaurant in town, having purchased the unused Bronte Building – an old mental asylum. In 2020 they added a kiosk for casual outdoor dining (cue picnic tables and expanses of green grass where families and couples can consume the exquisite fresh sandwiches, pastries in a leisurely fashion.)
Last year (2022) Rod and Severine reevaluated their family’s needs. With a house that now included teenagers, their home kitchen was no longer the best space to conduct cooking classes. They looked around for an alternative and repurposed a vacant space within the building and opened their new cooking school at the end of October, ready for any budding MasterChef’s.
The space with high ceilings, an old brick fireplace, plenty of windows letting in natural light and views of the countryside was the ideal location for creative and budding MasterChef’s to get down and dirty!
The asylum’s old exercise yard has been transformed into a large garden. They’ve made the most of the area being enclosed by a solid wall, providing protection for varieties of herbs and vegetables to grow. And importantly, is where they compost all waste from the restaurant and cooking school. Rodney proudly shares, by composting, they save over 12 tonnes of waste (annually) from going into landfill.
Apart from a full day cooking class, they offer a variety of classes: fermentation experience, natural cheesemaking, cooking with truffles and handmade pasta. They also invite chefs like Peter Gilmore, Ben Shewry and Danielle Alvarez who conduct classes.
My Agrarian Kitchen Cooking class
With five couples and myself making a class of 11, (maximum is 12) we toured the nearby garden (the old exercise yard) a few meters from the kitchen, plucking produce from the healthy outdoor gardens. And for the next four hours we chopped, stirred, measured, scored, and beat, creating a series of incredible dishes following recipes provided by Rodney. This was a very special day.
A massive thanks to our fabulous group: Jill & Mike; Kate & Steve; Liz & Robbie; Marg & Jeff, Sam & Adam. It was your passion, enthusiasm, and joyous spirits at being let loose in the kitchen that made this day SUPER special and hugely memorable. And a massive thank you to our wonderful hosts Rodney and Séverine.
If you are heading to Tasmania, I highly recommend the Agrarian Kitchen. Even this amateur chef managed to pick up a few new skills.
Get your hands deliciously dirty – travel story for Escape
(This is an extract from the story published on April 2nd, 2023.)
“You’ll have to put up with me for the next six hours,” says Rodney Dunn. “But hopefully by the end you will go home with some tips and tricks you can use in your everyday cooking.”
From Hobart, I’ve arrived at the Agrarian Kitchen in New Norfolk, a regional town in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley with a population a smidge over 6,000. I’m here for a hands-on-cooking class. School starts at 9am sharp and ends around 3.30pm. The finish time is loose because lunch, prepared and cooked by the students under Rodney’s expert tutelage, is the finale. And no one wants to rush through three courses paired with a fine selection of Tasmanian wines, do they?
In 2007 Rodney and wife Séverine Demanet moved from Sydney to open a cooking school in their home on the family farm in Lachlan (a 45 minute drive from Hobart). Sustainable practices are core to the Agrarian Kitchen philosophy, as is cooking with fresh ingredients, often extracted from the nearby garden. With a desire to connect people back to the earth, Séverine and Rodney, created the ultimate paddock to plate experience. Their cooking classes were booked out months in advance.
They expanded their agrarian business when they rented the vacant Bronte Building from the Derwent Valley Council in nearby New Norfolk’s Willow Court – once the town’s mental asylum – and opened the Agrarian Kitchen Restaurant in 2017. Three years later they added a kiosk for casual outdoor dining – expanses of green grass with picnic tables, where families and couples relax while munching on fresh sandwiches, salads and pastries.
With the couple’s two kids growing older (one a teenager) space at home became a premium and in early 2022 they decided to relocate the cooking school. A room in the Bronte Building was reimagined, and their new ‘classroom’ opened in October 2022.
You may read the full story here.
Leave a Reply