Chef Peter Kuruvita is both a gifted teacher and a natural storyteller. As well as learning how to fillet a tuna and the correct way to open an oyster, what goraka is, and how cinnamon is harvested, we hear tales of mud crab duels with Neil Perry, how a flying cleaver kickstarted his career and the time he cooked an iguana in Mexico.

Kuruvita was, for many years owner of Flying Fish in Sydney’s Pyrmont, with a second restaurant in Fiji. He’s also presented six television series and has written three books, Serendip – My Sri Lankan Kitchen, My Feast With Peter Kuruvita, and Lands Of The Curry Leaf.

Nine years ago, he moved his family to Noosa, setting up Noosa Beach House in the Sofitel on Hasting Street.

After parting ways with the hotel at the end of last year, Kuruvita opened restaurant, Alba by Peter Kuruvita, launching cooking classes in the purpose-built kitchen in February this year.

In addition to the cooking school and restaurant, there’s also a bar, cafe, pizzeria and a gourmet providore in the complex.

It’s a slightly out-of-the-way location, a bushy outer-Noosa suburb that has me checking my GPS more than once. The distance from the tourist touchstone of Hasting Street doesn’t seem to put anyone off though – not only are there already diners in the restaurant, but the class, Sri Lankan Seafood Masterclass, is at capacity.

There’s a wide demographic represented – both sexes and a spectrum of ages; locals, out-of staters, and a couple of international guests.

The classes, Kuruvita says are aimed at all levels: “People either want to learn something totally new or pick up a few tips.”

Adjoining the restaurant kitchen, the cooking school is fitted out with stainless steel benches and stools facing a demonstration kitchen that has a video screen mounted above it for those important how-to shots.

There are both hands-on and demo classes, this one, after some useful instruction from Kuruvita is the former.

With our tablemates, we are to choose which of the five dishes (plus oysters and rice) we’re going to take on.

There is a Jaffna curry, made with mud crab and a deeply aromatic northern Sri Lanka curry mix and Ambul Thial, a dry fish curry, flavoured with pepper, goraka, (which we learn is a dried fruit with a slightly sour note,) chili, and cinnamon, using the skipjack tuna Kuruvita has shown us how to fillet.

There is also a snake bean curry, a rich red coconut sambal, the famous Sri Lankan string hoppers  and a dessert called wattalappam  – a sort of spiced, baked coconut milk custard, sweetened with jaggery (unrefined  palm sugar.)

It seems chaotic as we divvy up tasks, share burners and hunt down ingredients, but 45 minutes or so later, the kitchen is redolent of spice and we are done.

Bonded by the experience, flushed with success, we share our meal, throwing compliments across the room to those responsible for the dishes we are tasting.

There are classes with other cuisines such as French and Mexican, but it’s Sri Lankan, a cuisine that despite having once spent three weeks there, I know the least about that drew me.

Listening to Kuruvita speak so passionately and knowledgeably about the food, interspersed with nostalgia-tinted childhood memories of his homeland, I feel I made the right choice.

Hands-on classes are $210 and include recipe booklet, apron and shared meal with a glass of wine; albanoosa.com.au/chefs-kitchen/cooking-school/

Related review: Alba by Kuruvita is just another reason to move to Noosa