Since 2019 we have developed in-person and remote courses for students in Chemistry, Medicine, Medical Biosciences, Mechanical Engineering and Executive Education, alongside an I-Explore module, an MSc Cleantech Innovation project module and a range of outreach and community activities. We have also delivered our teaching internationally in partnership with the Technical University of Munich. Together these reach around 1,000 students a year.
The interventions share a common design but are tailored to the skills, stage and discipline of each cohort.
Chemical Kitchen
Our first and flagship course introduces incoming chemistry undergraduates to laboratory practice through the parallel of gastronomy. Students work through a sequence of experiments that mirror a synthetic chemistry laboratory, from following a protocol to make tofu, to designing an experiment to cook the perfect egg yolk, to exploring molecular gastronomy, all while learning to work safely and keep detailed records. They finish by cooking a real delicious dish from the tofu they made.
Medical Kitchen
The Medical Kitchen addresses the skills gap second-year medical students meet at the start of clinical training and learn how to learn practical skills. Students practise meticulous culinary knife skills: turning vegetables, a classic French technique, alongside suturing a silicone pad, then reflect on the parallels and on the challenge of performing delicate skills in front of peers.
Biomedical Kitchen
An adaptation of Chemical Kitchen for first-year Medical Biosciences students, tailored to the skills they will need next. Students learn to work in a sterile, organised way by designing a yoghurt experiment, gain their first experience handling delicate gels, and use creative molecular gastronomy techniques to produce a set of identical canapés.
Mechanical Kitchen
Developed with colleagues in Mechanical Engineering, this intervention adapts the Kitchen model to give third-year students low-stakes practice in experimental design.
Science, Cooking and Performance - I-Explore
An advanced 10-week I-Explore module open to undergraduates from across the College, developed with the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein. Students explore interdisciplinary teamwork, build a sense of agency, and focus on themselves as "performers" while developing a sustainable food product.
MSc Cleantech Innovation project
A project module on sustainable food systems, co-designed and co-delivered with Design Engineering and the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein. Postgraduate students tackle a real sustainable-food challenge, bringing together food-innovation expertise and engineering design.
Executive Education and beyond
We adapt the same transdisciplinary approach for executive and professional audiences, using culinary tasks to help senior leaders examine how they collaborate and innovate — extending the model well beyond the undergraduate classroom.
Community and outreach
Because everyone has a relationship with food, the kitchen is uniquely suited to public engagement and outreach in STEMM, in person and remotely. Our World of Food workshops — funded by the President's Excellence Fund — invite staff and students to showcase their cultures through food, supporting equality, diversity and inclusion and ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ's values of collaboration and respect. The facility also hosts regular community events for staff and students, and we support colleagues across the College in delivering food-based science communication, including at the Great Exhibition Road Festival.