Ecole de Cuisine de l’Institut Paul Bocuse

I signed up on-​line for a number of cooking classes in French at the Paul Bocuse Ecole de Cuisine on Place Bellecour. This is not the student restaurant on the ground floor but classes given to the public by a chef instructor in two teaching kitchens upstairs.
I chose a class on tomatoes, a market class, a poultry class, a fish technique class, and a class on foie gras. They were all excellent. The instructor, Chef Philippe Jousse, who was at the helm of Alain Chapel for many years, is friendly, patient, communicates clearly, works well with the students, and is impeccably organized (also thanks to his assistant Claire).
The dishes all contained elements I felt I could apply immediately in my kitchen. In each workshop, we had full hands on with all of the main techniques, for example, deboning poultry, filleting various fish, peeling and seeding tomatoes, deveining our own foie gras, etc. We did fabulous sauces from A-​Z. We learned knife skills and most importantly little tips on how to make your plating really beautiful.
We did very beautiful sides like a novel variation on Pommes Anna involving pressing it while cooking, cutting into precise shapes and browning in clarified butter a the end, or for example a fine julienned beetroot that we then fried until crisp, making little decorative filaments that were simply gorgeous on the plate, creating height and color.
I am a cooking professional and would send my chef friends to this school without hesitation to cook for a day with Phiippe Jousse. Also, if you are an absolute beginner, you will get so much out of this class, you should not hesitate to take one if you can follow in the French language. Seeing and doing is the number one way of transmitting these skills.
Our welcome to the school was also impeccable. Warm friendly welcome, complimentary aprons, water and coffee, pastry and juice at the beginning of the workshops, a printed and spiral bound booklet with all of the recipes inside, a complimentary pen, vegetable peeler and paring knife with the school logo, etc. We were really made to feel special at this school. I think that if they began offering some classes in English, they would have an eager and supportive public ready to fill their classes up every single time.