Our students benefit from our vast experience of up-market Thai restaurants, international board meetings and world-class events as well as our experience of working with the world-famous chef, Albert Roux.
We certainly have extensive knowledge to pass on and we coach our students to ensure complete satisfaction. The school was established in the multicultural city of Edinburgh in 1997 and we offer a unique programme of training in many aspects of Thai cuisine. The School is well known for achieving the highest standards in traditional Thai cookery, fruit and vegetable carving and food presentation.
Did you know?
To be the number one specialist cookery school offering a unique standard of training in high status traditional Thai cuisine and blending techniques to professional chefs and lovers of fine food.
We achieve this by using a fully qualified Thai chef with a high level of expertise and a wealth of experience working with executives and other top-flight clients. The excellent value and quality of the service we offer each client ensure excellent customer retention. We are committed to continuously improving our level of service so as to not only meet but also surpass our customers’ expectations.
Our clients have come from more than 35 countries across the world, each one was keen to discover the superior Thai food which we offer.
Our students are on average 70% male and 30% female, both professional and non-professional alike. They come from all over the UK and the rest of the world, from as far afield as including America, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Trinidad and Zimbabwe.
Our professional students are high-calibre executive chefs, development chefs, food technologists, house managers, butlers, private chefs and sous chefs from various organisations such as boutique hotels, hotel chains, food manufacturers, airlines, yachts, and up-market bars and restaurants.
Our non-professional students come from a wide variety of interesting careers including accountants, architects, bankers, chief executives, comedians, doctors, editors, engineers, film producers, opera singers, professional golfers and many more.
Our students thoroughly enjoy our service, as evidenced by our testimonials.
The school has supported various organisations and fundraising events, staff development programmes such as National Food Safety Week, Minority Ethnic Carers of Older People Project (MECOPP), Healthy Eating for Parents in Deprived Areas, learning week programme for the Fire Brigade, Crime Stoppers, school fundraising and many more.
Krua Thai is an independent SME business organisation and our team puts every effort into ensuring we achieve our business targets. At the same time, we give back to our community and for this reason Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a vital part of Krua Thai strategy and ethics.
The School supports several charities for fundraising and has collaborated with Edinburgh City Council since 1997 offering several Thai cookery courses in various schools in Edinburgh such as Broughton High School, James Gillespie High School, Liberton High School to enhance healthy eating and boost quality cooking confidence within the community and society. Our CSR keeps the School busy throughout each year!
Krua Thai Cookery has been featured on TV, radio and in newspapers and magazines as well as taking part in many live demonstrations.
Our school was not only regularly featured Cooking Live on Scottish Television but also on programmes such as The Hour, The Fountainbridge Show, Air A Bhord, Tea for Ten and Live at Five amongst many others.
We have had various articles written about us in publications such as The Daily Express, Business a.m., The Herald, The Scotsman, The Evening News and The Sunday Times. We also appeared in Sawasdee, the in-flight magazine of Thai Airways International and also received an excellent report from Food & Travel Magazine as Top of the Class.
Our found and course leader, Rujira Herd, regularly worked for the late world-famous chef Albert Roux at his special events such as Wimbledon as well as many other locations across the UK. Rujira has been invited to work as the private, specialist chef for planning and implementing various theme buffets and special banquets for several European executives.
Our clients include the international presidents and other chief executives of the Hilton International Group around the world total of 25 countries in her time working there. The menus presented have included top quality traditional Thai cuisine using superior food presentation techniques and including the Royal Thai culinary art of fruit and vegetable carving.
We were honoured to work with the Hilton International Group in implementing a special buffet for 300 delegates from all over the world for the launch of Ms. Saigon in Edinburgh.
We won the contract to provide the catering for 750 guests at the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival – Perrier Comedy Awards ceremony with special Thai canapés and stunning food presentation.
Our clients have included Caledonian Hilton Hotel, Hilton Dublin, Hilton Craigendarroch in Aberdeen, Holiday Inn, Delta Group-Sweden, Food distributors, manufacturers for all UK supermarkets (such as M&S, Sainsburys, Tesco, Waitrose, Asda), RBS UK executives, PKF finance co., Capital Credit Union, WL Gore, Maximillion & San Frontier event companies, various small luxury house hotels, upmarket Cookery School and up-market bars and restaurants.
We were honoured to take part in a fruit and vegetable carving demonstration at King James Thistle Hotel, Edinburgh organised by the Tourism Authority of Thailand during the launch of “Amazing Thailand”.
Rujira Yuenboon Herd BA(Hons) IHM, Dip. Cul, Dip HTM, Dip BA, Dip REHIS, AET is the course leader of the Krua Thai Cookery School. She was born in Chiangmai, northern Thailand and was educated in Wattano Thai Ladies School in Chiangmai where she gained all her basic skills in cookery, fruit carving and other facets of essential classical Thai culture.
Rujira was brought up in a family of teachers and in the Thai tradition of discipline, high ethics and strong principles. Therefore, education is always a priority for her family. Rujira has a colourful career prior to becoming a fully qualified Thai chef.
In Thailand, Rujira obtained a Diploma in Hospitality Management (Food and Beverage) and trained at 4/5 star hotels in Chiangmai. She also gained a Diploma in Business Administration at Ratchamankala University in Chiangmai Thailand. She worked as a duty manager in a quality 400 seat restaurant and later took up a position as a personal assistant in a Thai silk export company. She moved on to join international travel – Import and Export company that dealt primarily with the Korean National Tourism Corporation. During her work, Rujira was also working as an import and export agent – Rujira always enjoys keeping herself busy!
In the UK, Rujira furthered her studies, gaining an HND in Culinary Arts with Management at Edinburgh Telford College and a BA (Hons – 2:1) in International Hospitality Management at Queen Margaret University as well as an Advanced Diploma in Food Hygiene and Award Education Training Level 3 (AET).
Rujira is a member of Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland with a full license as a trainer in Food Hygiene and Food Allergens. During her studied business entrepreneurship as part of management degree, Rujira had won the Sir Alex Fletcher Prize for Best Business Plan and her supervisor went on to use this a prime example of a business plan for other students to learn from. Rujira was later invited to give a talk at various business seminars to present her business how and why Krua Thai Cookery School has been successful and have students from more than 34 countries. Krua Thai Cookery School now serves clients in Europe and other parts of the world for flexible training and consultancy.
Rujira enjoys keeping herself busy, learning, working, experimenting and loves traveling across the world. Prior to establishing Krua Thai Cookery School, she worked as a freelance translator dealing with editing, police and court cases around Scotland and Shetland but her first job in Edinburgh was offered by the university as a part-time tutor of Thai language at the Centre of Continuing Education at the University of Edinburgh (1987-1994) where she was trained to teach English as Foreign Language (TEFEL) from the University of Edinburgh. Around this time Rujira also ran a wholesale import business dealing with Thai handicraft from her hometown of Chiangmai with the help of her sister whom she taught her sister the ins and outs of the importing business to.
Despite this, Rujira’s first love was cooking as she also worked as a chef as Scotland’s first Thai restaurant (80 seats) from 1987-1997 where she gained extensive knowledge and experience in the real world of commercial catering in the UK. She worked at the Waldorf Astoria – Caledonian Hilton Hotel and was later was asked to accompany her boss to work as a specialist chef responsible for Thai cuisine for Hilton presidents around the world.
Rujira has worked as a food consultant for various food manufacturers and distributors in UK. including Covent Gardens Soup, Amoy UK, Noon products, Marks and Spencers and more. She also worked for the world-famous chef Albert Roux at his special events around the UK such as The Gatsby Club at Wimbledon Tennis Championships.
By combining her business and cookery skills, Rujira went on to open her own highly popular and successful Krua Thai Cookery School. If you would like to learn more, Ru is more than happy to tell you a fun story of what and why she ended up as a chef!
Swadee ka : )
19 Liberton Brae
Edinburgh
EH16 6AQ
Scotland
UK
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