Tante Marie
Tante Marie Culinary Academy is a cookery school in Woking, Surrey, England. It is the United Kingdom's oldest independent cookery school, established in 1954 by the cookery writer Iris Syrett. It was the first school in the UK to offer a Cordon Bleu Diploma, which continues to be the backbone of Tante Marie’s course structure today. Courses range in length from one day to the full-time one-year professional Cordon Bleu Diploma.
Iris Syrett died in 1964, after which Wendy Majerowicz became Principal. In 1967 the school moved to its current location, Woodham House on Carlton Road. John and Beryl Childs, who owned the school from 1982 onwards, continued the development of courses and curriculum into a programme that has become recognised as one of the world's leading independent providers of culinary training.[citation needed]
Marcella O’Donovan, one of the school's teachers, bought the school with the backing of her family when Beryl and John Childs retired in 1999. The O’Donovans oversaw the introduction of new courses to cater for the gap year and the amateur cook market, while at the same time maintaining the school's professional emphasis.
In April 2008 the school was bought by its then Deputy Principal, Andrew Maxwell, along with Gordon Ramsay Holdings and Lyndy Redding, a former graduate of the Intensive Cordon Bleu Diploma course who now owns Absolute Taste, a catering and events planning business based in London.
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