ccording to the celebrated 19th-century French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star." Whatever about stargazing, hands-on culinary courses are definitely popular among today's culture-hungry travellers. Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai runs its own Cooking School – which is just as popular as its Lanna Spa. Fort Canning Park, a landscaped oasis in the centre of Singapore, has seen an enormous rise in visitors thanks to At-Sunrice, a culinary academy specialising in Southeast Asian cuisine. And smaller schools, like that of Dato Rudin Salinger on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur or the Boathouse in Phuket, bring their own special qualities to one of life's great sensual pursuits. Read on for a taste of what's cooking.

The Cooking School – Chiang Mai, Thailand
Tucked within the lush surrounds of the Mae Rim valley, a 20-minute drive from bustling Chiang Mai, the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai is northern Thailand's best escapist destination. Its stilted pavilions and villas are arranged like a traditional village within a landscape of lush gardens and terraced rice paddies. Water buffaloes roam – each has been given a name by the staff – and torches light up the grounds at night as guests slowly peel themselves from deck chairs overlooking the jungle-shrouded hills.

Infusing luxury with high design and local culture is what this resort does better than most, and its Cooking School is no exception. Built in the elegant-rustic style of local temples, it already seems as much a part of its surrounds as the much-vaunted Lanna Spa on the other side of the property. Under the shade of bamboo, teak and banyan trees, the villa reverberates with the sounds of cleavers on wood, mortars in pestles and sizzling woks. Inside, large ceramic drums cloak overhead stove covers, while smooth hardwood floors connect the cooking and dining pavilions.

The Cooking School ensures quality of experience by keeping to a maximum of 16 students per day. There are several hosts, clad in elegant silks; a chef fluent in English, Thai and Malay; and smiling cooks who prepare raw ingredients with astonishing speed. Classes begin at 9am with guests invited to make offerings at a spirit house with the staff. It's the first step in a programme that aims to impart a measure of Thai grace and tradition. Morning lectures continue this theme, focusing on food, culture and history, after which guests are led on a walkabout through small herb gardens where basil, lemongrass and chillies are grown.

The six-day programme consists of daily cooking classes in different categories – Thai appetizers, spicy salads, traditional soups, vegetarian dishes, curries and desserts. Guests can jump in and out of these as they choose. There are also optional market tours and fruit and vegetable-carving classes. All are led by chef Pitak Srichan, a wide-eyed Thai from Nakhon Panom whose gentle demeanour belies deft knife skills and a firm grip on the wok. "Thai food is not hard," he says while sliding an artist's palette of red, yellow and green vegetables into a wok. "The challenge is finding the right ingredients at the market."

He's a good shopper. The Cooking School serves up some of the most impressive food in the region. Even a day of vegetarian cooking, a tough agenda in Chinese-influenced Southeast Asia, produced a banquet. There was a basil-scented curry whose thin broth and aromatic ingredients were the stuff of sorcery; street food favourite deep-fried tofu adapted to the vegetarian palate with a shiitake mushroom gravy; a piquant yellow curry with vegetables; and rice noodle baskets filled with a starchy stir-frys. Each dish represented a different aspect of the culture – Indian, Chinese, ethnic Thai, Royal – and chef Pitak explained this all with glee, peppering his teachings with anecdotes and helping students as they chopped vegetables or thickened curries. If only he could be brought home with the recipes.

The Cooking School, Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, Mae Rim-Samoeng Old Road, Mae Rim, Chiang Mai; +66 (0)53 298 181; www.fourseasons.com

Rudinara – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dato Prof Dr Haji Rudin Salinger is one of the most unusual cooking instructors you'll ever encounter. He's neither a chef by training nor a native of the country whose cuisine he champions. He has no show kitchen and no glossy brochure. Rather, he is a sprightly 73-year-old with an enormous grin, an American who has lived in Malaysia for over 30 years, speaks flawless Bahasa Malaysia and is trained in zoology, chemistry and physics.

But it is Dato Rudin's fascination with cooking and eating that makes his half or day-long explorations of Malaysian food culture one of the most singular experiences in Southeast Asia. At his home 30 minutes outside Kuala Lumpur, he runs tours, classes and lectures that focus on the intersection of Malaysiana and these two passions.

The first thing that'll strike you is the house itself, Rudinara. This is partly because Dato Rudin begins the day with a tour of the residence – and it's a stunner. Completed in 1998, it won the prestigious Aga Khan Award for its 'significant contribution to Islamic architecture'. Standing on a hill strewn with clove, pepper, rambutan, and durian trees, Rudinara is a wooden structure designed around Islamic geometry, Malaysian flourishes, and red clay tiles embossed with Arabic script and the names of Dato Rudin and his wife Munira – with nothing but wooden pegs holding it all together.

Depending upon the schedule one chooses, a day at Rudinara might begin with making a traditional morning breakfast of nasi dagang, a coconut-scented rice dish served with aromatic tuna curry that is a staple of peninsular Malaysia's east-coast villages. The rice is gently scented with fenugreek, shallots, garlic and ginger and the broth has a sour tamarind twang. Other dishes taught include assam laksa (with rice noodles made from scratch) and the deceptively sophisticated sweets known as kueh.

Perhaps most astonishing here is the doctor's collection of traditional cooking implements, which he uses to make coconut milk and noodles, grind and hull rice and do various other things that are largely done mechanically these days. "Most Malays don't use these anymore, and they can't believe a matsali (foreigner) does." Dato Rudin exclaims. Guests are invited to join him on the porch to husk coconuts or stuff sticky rice into bamboo with a machete-like parang. The implements range from a medieval-looking wooden scraper called a simpal to a small, elegant brass funnel that fans batter into butterfly-like patterns for roti jala. The only thing missing is a gift shop.

Rudinara, Kajang; +603 8925 2700; humancap@myjaring.net

The Boathouse – Phuket, Thailand

A boutique hotel on Phuket's Kata Beach, the Boathouse was opened by trendsetting Thai architect ML Tri Devakul in 1989 and has evolved considerably under his guidance. There's now fine French and Thai dining at the main restaurant, market-style seafood at a place called Gung next door, a nightly gourmet extravaganza prepared in ML Tri's private villa by his personal chef, and what must be one of Southeast Asia's most impressive wine cellars.

Along with all this goes a trim and focused cooking programme. This means that classes are offered once a week (for two consecutive days) and on weekends only. Participants are kept under a dozen and classes are taught solely by the Boathouse's executive chef, Tummanoon Punchun. Slim as a lemongrass stalk and with a bashful smile to match, he has a firm grasp on both Western and local cooking styles. This allows him to use ingredients like tuna or beef tenderloin, yet still incorporate the curry pastes, fresh green peppercorns, galangal and other flavours that define Thai cooking.

It also means Punchun, though a touch shy, is a natural once he gets teaching. He balances fun, sensitivity and the ability to get across useful and enduring information in a way beyond most other culinary gurus. Recipes are neither sophisticated in the style of Chiang Mai nor esoteric like those of Dato Rudin, but the way Punchun imparts them by peppering his teachings with useful tips – why to heat coconut milk slowly, how not to overcook squid – means his students will no doubt be spreading the Thai food gospel abroad.

Before any cooking begins, students are walked through the basic Thai spices and ingredients. Then come appetisers and salads, soups and curries, and onward through two days that climax with oft-neglected Thai sweets. Ten recipes are taught in all, ranging from staples like stir-fried morning glory with fermented soybeans and chilli to intense red curries and delicately stuffed pockets of tofu. Classes end at noon with a sit-down lunch that extends the love of food at the Boathouse from cooking to consumption. Five dishes with matching wines are served and guests linger on for hours. This is one of those places where no one needs to be taught how to enjoy themselves.

The Boathouse, Kata Beach, Phuket; +66 (0)76 330 015; www.boathousephuket.com

At-Sunrice – Singapore

At-Sunrice is set inside Singapore's Fort Canning Park, a lush and hilly expanse of parkland and curving pathways at the doorstep of Orchard Road. The building it occupies was the former seat of the British colonial administration, but the gleaming showcase kitchens inside are anything but old world. Founder Kwan Lui has 20-plus years of experience selling curry pastes throughout Asia and the US, and he has imbued At-Sunrice with his own vision.

By presenting Asian cuisine as a sum of its many ethnic parts – Chinese, Thai, Malay, Indian – At-Sunrice addresses the multi-faceted culture of Singapore as well as Southeast Asia's common heritage. The curriculum is thorough and tailored to all levels of expertise. One can sign up for in-depth three-week programmes or stop in for one-day classes that cover basic repertoires in Chinese (steamed fish with black beans, salt-baked chicken), Singaporean (chicken rice, pepper crab), Thai (tom yum, green curry) and Indian (fish curry, chapathi) cooking, among others.

If the Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai is on to something with its ties to local tradition, At-Sunrice has gone another way by placing cooking firmly in the realm of global lifestyle. This is one of few cooking schools the world over which can appeal to curious diners (via an adjoining cafe serving rootsy specialties like Burmese tea-leaf salad and Cambodian samlaa), tourists and culinary professionals alike. They've even designed programmes for couples and kids. And much of their teaching agility is thanks to a highly experienced team of chef-instructors trained as far apart as Napa Valley, San Francisco, Dalian and Singapore itself.

Fort Canning Centre, Singapore; +65 6336 3307; www.at-sunrice.com