Venice

• On the Ship where every one knows your name
• Paris is perfect, if you ditch the men! - France
• An appetite of Venice - Italy
• Party time in Tapas Central - Spain
• Croatia uncovered! - Croatia
• I'll have the state room please - Portugal
• Seeking Spain's hidden gems - Spain
• Let's tryst again - Sicily
• Dallying with Delia - Majorca
• Wax gets the works - Majorca
• B&B at the Palace - Italy
• The Golden Oldie - France
• Amazing Amalfi - Italy
• Follow the Stars - Europe
• Tuscany - Italy

SOMETHING GREY AND SLIMY is sticking to my hand and a plate of raw shrimp in need of beheading sits before me.

I am at one of the world’s most exclusive addresses and yet the word ‘glamour’ doesn’t immediately spring to mind.

Welcome to the Hotel Cipriani, a name as synonymous with glorious Venice as its gondolas, canals and carnivals.

The hotel’s hallowed doors have welcomed just about every member of the glitterati you could name, from Princess Diana and George Clooney to Nicole Kidman and Henry Kissinger.

And yet I’d wager that none of them has ever donned an apron and cooked their own lunch here as I am about to do.

Signing up to the Cipriani’s inaugural Guest Stars Cookery School was a little intimidating, to say the least.

It’s one thing having a ‘can’t cook, won’t cook’ attitude in your own home.

But it’s quite another admitting it to the likes of our course tutors, Raymond Blanc, chef-patron of the fabulous Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons, near Oxford, and his Italian counterpart, Ezio Santin.

Between them, they share four Michelin stars, and something tells me that my ability to follow microwave instructions on the back of a ready meal won’t put me on quite the same footing.

But where better to learn to cook than this dreamy, romantic setting?

Sited on the city’s Giudecca Island, where Sir Elton John has a home, the Cipriani offers a welcome haven from the hustle and bustle of the tourist Mecca of St Mark’s Square.

Decadance is justified

Checking in, I am ecstatic to discover my sumptuous suite, decorated in warm terracotta tones, boasts an outdoor hot tub hidden under a leafy pagoda.

The Cipriani has been running a cookery school since the 1970s, but dropped the programme when American tourists stayed at home after the September 11 attacks. Relaunched, it is thriving once again.

To show us how it is done properly, we sit down to a lavish gala dinner where we feast on dishes ranging from Venetian spider crabs to stuffed quail and chocolate souffle with bitter chocolate ice cream. Right away, the city’s reputation for decadence is justified.

But the next morning, after a delectable breakfast of superfoods – pomegranate and blueberry juice, spinach omelette and tropical fruit salad – it is time to get to work. We don crisp white aprons and head for our classroom in the Granaries of the Republic building.

This 16th-century relic, with exposed brick walls, was originally a warehouse to store salt. Its interior has been given a modern twist with a fabulous kitchen and a huge screen so our intimate class of 12 can watch our teacher more closely.

For a man whose idea of an easy recipe is his ‘essence de tomates’, which involves collecting the juice of pureed tomatoes through muslin bags over 24 hours, I am expecting the worst of Blanc.

But he chooses to surprise us all and starts by teaching us how to chop an onion.

This may sound simple, but try doing it like a proper chef. You have to seesaw the knife across the chopping board and eventually, most chefs take at least six months to learn, you can do it at top speed.

But we don’t have six months. We only have four days; two with each chef. So Blanc doesn’t waste a minute and has us students, mostly middle-aged Americans and Brits, running round like whirling dervishes as we chop, baste and knead.

Impossible not to feel inspired

I thought I had tasted organic before, but nothing could be more organic than the pasta we create from scratch, pummelling together flour and eggs until our arms ache, rolling it wafer-thin and finally cutting it into delicate shapes.

When we fill the ravioli with wild mushrooms and toss them in roasted hazelnuts and sage, they are so buttery they melt divinely on the tongue.

As we ease into our stride, selftaught Blanc pulls no punches and tells us that he believes in hands-on learning and understanding how raw ingredients can be transformed into nutritious meals.

And so we find ourselves gingerly handling slimy squid and comical-looking monkfish in Venice’s dazzling Rialto market; pureeing squishy chicken livers for pate; slicing sole that is virtually flip-flopping on our chopping boards, and processing fish heads for bouillabaisse.

It is not for the fainthearted. But then if Jamie Oliver is the outrider of healthy eating, Blanc is the godfather. ‘We have completely lost our food culture and trying to find local ingredients in Britain is impossible,’ he exclaims. ‘We have been manipulated into thinking we can get cheap food with no effort.’

He is so passionate on the subject it is impossible not to feel inspired as we assemble course after elaborate course, all with Blanc’s French twist.

From roquefort salad with pears and walnut to pan-fried sea bream with herby ratatouille, the dishes are made astonishingly simple.

We get to tuck into our treats once we have made them. But as they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch and Santin, who takes over for the second half of the course, makes us work for it.

Cooking is love

A sweet, jolly-faced man who holds the rather grand title of Italian Cavalier of the Republic, he does not speak a word of English, which makes for an interesting lesson with a class full of non-Italian speakers.

Although we have a translator, the time delay in getting an instruction relayed leads to comical results, hence ‘lightly toasted mushrooms’ means most of our frazzled vegetables have to be discarded.

The only thing to do is watch him and follow suit, which teaches us to trust our eyes, instincts and sense of taste with all the expertise of a chef.

Within minutes, he has us dissecting fish for a brandade – a kind of salty, fishy mash which was popular among poor diners in 18th-century Italy. Now, it is all the rage at chic Italian tables.

Starters done, we move on to rabbit saddle parcels with Grappa-soaked prunes and creamed pancetta.

Rather gruesomely, Thumper comes with some fur attached and has to be deboned and gutted. Ignore the ‘ick’ factor and it is easy to see how Italian cuisine combines the best of local ingredients and translates them into hearty, tastebud-tingling fare.

Italian Potato Council chief Maria Vendramini Favero, a self- styled ‘potato ambassador’ who pops in to push the humble veg, is keen to emphasise the point.

‘La cucinare e amore,’ she declares, diving into her Tardis-like handbag to pluck out a heartshaped potato, which she brandishes triumphantly.

It means ‘cooking is love’ – and after four days here, I’m certainly not going to argue.