Margot, the homeware store that has taught 300,000 children how to cook

On a recent afternoon in the Sussex town of Lewes, the scent of cooking pervades the air. It emanates from an 18th-century townhouse with a decorative timber-framed facade, and mingles with the aroma of dried herbs, lavender and cut flowers. Formerly an antiques shop, the building is now home to Margot, a chic homeware store with a serious culinary purpose. 

Inside, tables are set with block-printed cloths and shelves arranged with terracotta carafes, ceramic tasse cups and vintage-style glassware. In the corner, a large pantry is stocked with cookbooks, delicious-looking chutneys and olive oil. Yet it’s only when you retreat to the back of the shop and step into the working kitchen, a homely space with bespoke cabinetry and original wooden floors, that the source of the cooking smell – and the mission – becomes clear. 

Margot is the latest endeavour from children’s food writer Amanda Grant and Kristian Dean, the wife-and-husband founders of Cook School, a not-for-profit initiative teaching young people how to prepare nourishing meals. “Our family life has always revolved around mealtimes,” says Grant. “So many memories are created at the table.” First established in 2019, the project grew out of an ongoing conversation between Grant and Dean around the culinary skills that their five (now grown-up) children were learning (or not learning) at school. Working in tandem with the school curriculum, they began staging hands-on cookery demonstrations at after-school clubs across the country. Employing minimal equipment and accessible, vegetarian ingredients, they’d teach kids how to make everything from curries to crumbles. “Very quickly we had former teachers and chefs volunteering,” says Grant. 

The goal is for every child to be able to confidently cook 10 dishes

That year, they toured the school dining halls of the London borough of Lambeth, teaching a staggering 12,000 primary pupils to make vegetable samosas in four months. “It was exhausting but exhilarating,” says Grant of the sessions. “The children hadn’t experienced anything like it before. They didn’t know the difference between a cucumber and a courgette. That drove us on.” To date, Cook School has reached more than 300,000 schoolchildren across four countries – including Sweden, Finland and Vietnam – both in person and via digital classes led by a child cook (Grant and Dean realised early on that it is less intimidating to be taught by peers, and boosts engagement). This autumn they will launch in the US.

Offering an assortment of Mediterranean-influenced, artisan-made goods designed and developed by Grant and Dean (and frequently used at their home), Margot is named after the family cockapoo. Highlights range from a Porto-produced embroidered white linen tablecloth (from £214.50) inspired by one inherited from Grant’s late mother to partially glazed carafes (from £43.50) created in northern Spain. All profits go back into Cook School. 

The shop is an expression of the couple’s passion for interiors but also acts as the unofficial headquarters of Cook School; a site to host, develop dishes and film recipe demos in the kitchen, designed and built by Dean, who has a background in historic restoration. “People come in, buy a plate and ask how they can help Cook School,” says Grant. They join an impressive and enthusiastic roll call of supporters including Violet Bakery’s Claire Ptak and the McCartney family (Mary, Stella and Paul). “Cook School is doing such fantastic work by engaging the next generation in food,” says Paul McCartney. “Working in a way that’s collaborative and genuinely enjoyable, they make cooking what we have always believed it should be – a positive, inclusive and uplifting experience, especially for children.”

“It’s about making sure that kids are taught in a way they can easily understand,” says Grant, who has written 10 cookbooks, including a youth-focused adaptation of the influential 1950s Italian manual The Silver Spoon. She tailors recipes for particular developmental stages, road-testing them on her target audience: children. “Once you know how to eat well you can look after yourself and cook for your family,” she says. “Not having those basic skills can have a huge impact on future lives and health.” The ultimate goal is for every child to be able to confidently muster a core repertoire of 10 dishes. 

Although Cook School focuses on underprivileged communities, for Grant there has been a generational drop in culinary skills across the board. Working parents are time-poor and frequently squeezed economically, meaning ready meals are increasingly more appealing than the fresh ingredients they’re composed of. Grant wants to show that healthy, homemade meals can be equally quick and affordable. The answer lies in reconnecting kids with the kinds of simple acts she performed with her own mother in the kitchen – from stirring sauces to peeling garlic. 

Back in the Margot kitchen, a throng of children arrives for a culinary session. There’s a sense of excitement and high energy, but as they’re talked through ingredients for today’s vegetable and chickpea empanadas, a hush descends. They’re ready to start cooking.  

cookschool.net, margotmargot.co.uk