After opening the Willow Vale Cooking School in the Gold Coast hinterland in 2019, Bruno and Catherine Loubet have relocated to Perseverance (35-minutes north of Toowoomba) where they will reopen the school on a lush new 100-acre property near Ravensbourne National Park.

“We like Toowoomba a lot [and] there’s a real food culture here,” says Catherine, who wanted to move to a larger property to look after more animals. “When we saw this spot, we [fell in love with it].”

Many locals will remember Loubet from his Toowong restaurant, Bruno’s Tables (now 85 Miskin St). Opening in 2002, it went on to win fans and awards with its classic French food. He’s also worked at London’s Inn on the Park – where his cooking earned the hotel a Michelin star – and opened the Grain Store in Kings Cross. The latter highlighted vegetables and featured only a handful of meat dishes.

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“[The Grain Store] was a bit of a breakthrough,” Loubet told Broadsheet in 2018. “Nothing like that had been done on that scale before. We showed people you can eat good food by eating less meat.”

The couple’s Willow Vale Cooking School has a strong plant-based focus, although there are some meat and fish dishes too (Bruno eats meat as long as it’s raised well and treated properly). Dishes might be cheese souffle on creamed leeks and ceps, whole fish roasted Provencale style with socca nicoise (crispy chickpea pancake) and tarte tatin.

Each class begins with a tour of the property, meeting the animals and picking produce from the garden. At the end, you’ll sit down with your fellow classmates for a three-course meal.

The Loubets will keep the Willow Vale name when they reopen the school in mid-June. Most of the classes – such as French Icons, Fresh Pasta and A Day in Provence – will stay the same, although Catherine says they may add more classes in the future.

Instead of building a new kitchen like they did at Willow Vale, the Loubets will use their home kitchen for the eight-person-max classes. It’s fitted out with a UK-made AGA stove and cooktop, and 2.8-metres of granite bench top. An outdoor kitchen has a large teppanyaki grill, which will be incorporated into the classes when the weather gets warmer.

Bruno, a keen gardener, has been busy filling the garden beds with winter vegetables, including garlic, turmeric, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, silverbeet and bok choy). It’s a big change from the 100-square-metre garden he was looking after in London.

The Willow Vale Cooking School will reopen in Perseverance, 35 minutes north of Toowoomba’s CBD, in mid-June.

willowvalecookingschool.com