The Wildest Cookery School in the UK: Mike Robinson’s Game and Wild Food Cookery School by Leo Bear

Like to puff up your chest, fill your lungs with raw country air then slash open a few animals? This school specialises in ‘field to table’ cooking – which means just that.

Since opening in 2006, devotées of Mike’s rural restaurant, the Pot Kiln, have been queuing up to learn how to butcher rabbits, prep game birds and rediscover the art of smoking, curing and pickling. ‘What we do, is teach people about the type of food your granddad knew – pre-war, pre-supermarket’, says Mike, ‘before meat came all neatly packaged and we dissociated it from eating animals.’

He’s passionate about teaching skills that are dying out. ‘I often get our older clients saying: “I haven’t skinned a rabbit for 30 years”, people have forgotten what to do.’

But there’s nothing old-fashioned about Mike’s hi-tech kitchen with its shiny Silestone worktops, De Dietrich appliances and plenty of elbow room for up to 12 people to get their hands bloody.

His wildest course? The Full Venison. On this one-day course, groups head out to the local deer park, cull a deer then field dress it and take it back for skinning, jointing and butchering. Other courses include Butchery & Sausages; Cooking in the Wild; Ferreting; Offal; Smoking, Curing & Preserving; Traditional Pie Making and Wild Mushroom Foraging, all from £150 per person. Afterwards, of course, there’s a jolly good feast in Mike’s hunting lodge-style dining room. The only question is, are you game?