Refugee-Led Cookery School to Launch in Bristol This November

Run by award-winning charity Migrateful and based at Windmill Hill City Farm in Bedminster, the new school will host classes in cuisines from Trinidad and Tobago, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Sudan and beyond. 

The classes invite participants to cook a meal collaboratively, guided by a refugee chef, who shares their recipes, culture and stories with the group. The experience ends with everyone sitting down around the dinner table to share a delicious meal in a celebration of food and togetherness. 

Migrateful has found a natural home at Windmill Hill City Farm, a place dedicated to community and connection. The school's modern, open plan kitchen with cooking stations and large dining table, provides the perfect setting to cook, share meals, and meet new people. 

Classes are open to the public and available to book from November 4th at migrateful.org/classes. They also run private classes for team building days and friends' socials: migrateful.org/classes/group-classes/.

Migrateful provides refugee cooks with paid work, training, and opportunities to build confidence, improve English, and make new connections. Many of the chefs have fled war, violence, or persecution, and the classes offer a path toward independence and employment. 

Beyond cooking, Migrateful’s mission is to challenge negative perceptions of migration in the UK. Its model is based on psychologist Gordon Allport’s well validated “contact theory” which sets out the conditions under which contact between refugees and host communities can successfully reduce prejudice towards refugees. Migrateful’s cookery classes are designed to meet these conditions, including having participants of equal status working collaboratively on a common goal - in this case the creation of a delicious meal. 

In light of recent anti-migrant protests and increased xenophobic attacks in the city, initiatives like this are more important than ever. Migrateful offers a positive solution to the growing divisions in our society, bringing people together to foster understanding and build a Bristol that is welcoming for all.
The Migrateful idea was borne following discussions with a group of refugee women at a skill exchange project. The women in the group were all very qualified yet were unemployed because of language barriers and their qualifications not being recognised in the UK. When asked about the skills they could share with the group, many of them said they could cook. This gave our founder Jess Thompson the idea to start Migrateful; with the aim to help refugees into employment by supporting them to share their incredible cooking skills with the world.

Jess, a Bristolian, ran the first-ever class with paying participants at Bakesmiths on Whiteladies Road in May 2017, before expanding the model to London. The first class was a real success, and since then Migrateful has gone on to run over 5000 cookery classes with over 62,000 participants taught by cooks representing 48 different nationalities. 

Migrateful’s popularity in London took off following a huge wave of PR, with Jess being recognised on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and receiving support from Jamie Oliver, Meghan Markle, and Yotam Ottolenghi. Over the past six years, Migrateful has been building its name in Bristol through regular cookery classes held in pop-up venues across the city. Due to popular demand and following a successful crowdfunding campaign in the spring, the dream of opening its very own cookery school in Bristol has finally come true. The cookery school will open on 4 November 2025, with a launch event on 12 November featuring a tour of the new space, food prepared by Migrateful chefs, and live music. By attending a cookery class, Bristolians can learn to cook delicious dishes, explore new cultures, and support refugee and asylum-seeking chefs to build new lives in the city.