I AM fascinated with restaurant kitchens.

I get overly aflutter when I eat at somewhere that has an open-plan kitchen and ashamedly I have been known to ‘accidentally’ mistake the door to the ladies for the door to the kitchen just so I could sneak a peek at the adrenaline-fuelled service.

I am enthralled by the way chefs and kitchens work, so it’s needless to say that I got rather excited when I heard about the Demo and Dine event (£30pp) at Castle Green Hotel as part of Kendal Festival of Food.

Although we didn’t all actually get to pile into the engine room, we did get to see executive head chef of the hotel and its 2AA Rosette Greenhouse Restaurant Justin Woods at work.

The event began with an offering of tasty canapes, before we all took our tables for Justin’s culinary showcase in his makeshift dining room kitchen, where he demonstrated each of the three dishes we were to be served.

A seasonal butternut squash soup started things off beautifully, with Justin proving how easy a punchy parsley pesto was to knock up and introducing Australian damper bread, made with beer and flour, into our lives.

The emerald pesto melted into the amber liquid deliciously, giving the soup a nutty essence.

Like a well-behaved school class we watched carefully as Justin proceeded to bone a full chicken in preparation for our main course of chicken breast with wild mushroom ravioli and tarragon sauce.

It looked effortless, the secret being a sharp knife he revealed, but that was nothing compared to how simple he made the ravioli look.

My assistance was called upon after no one volunteered to help with the pasta making; I didn’t disgrace myself but my effort wasn’t a par on the silky pillows of mushroom-filled pasta that came with our tender chicken breast and rich poultry sauce.

But the star of the show was the flawless chocolate fondants that arrived for dessert together with a tangy cream made with Barbon marmalade.

The concentration on everybody’s face as Justin took us step by step through the toe-curling recipe spoke volumes of the number of failed fondants in the room, but after indulging in the fluffy, molten chocolate-filled concoction we all left confident we could conquer it.

After coffee and truffles, we left inspired and keen to get in the kitchen.