★ Best place to go

Strong living community

Mallorca, Spain

Learn the galley from two working yacht chefs, with three days and nights aboard a catamaran, in a port where crew are hired.

Season: Spring · Beginner -> First boat

Living sceneVerified schoolsTaught in English

Where it is taught — hand-verified

Schools in Mallorca

Researched by hand against each school's own course pages · Arnaud Callier. No school paid to be listed.

★ Best course for this craftRead and corrected by the schoolPhotographs from the school
Anchor & Apron
Yacht Chef Training — two weeks, with three days and nights aboard a catamaran
Where
Mallorca; venue sent 2 weeks ahead
How long
2 weeks
Format
Galley teaching, then 3 days and nights aboard
You leave with
None — not a Ship's Cook Certificate
Price
€3,950 accommodation, meals and villa transfers in; flights and airport transfers out
Two weeks with Cara Whiteman and Amber Colle, working yacht chefs who teach it themselves and publish their own backgrounds. Galley management, provisioning, menus, etiquette and deck duties — plus three days and nights aboard a catamaran. No experience needed. It does not produce a Ship's Cook Certificate; STCW and a medical are separate, compulsory and not included; and no school can promise a job — theirs says a first boat "could take 2 weeks to 3 months." The school is about twenty minutes from Palma; the exact venue goes to students two weeks before the course starts. The 2–16 May 2027 run is sold out, and the school is launching a second, 30 May – 13 June 2027. Both advanced weeks it is running now are full, and the next is in May 2027. A place is held with an €800 deposit, and the rest is paid in instalments. Checked on anchorandapron.co, 7 October 2026, and with the school by email, 6 October 2026.
What the course covers
Two weeks with Cara Whiteman and Amber Colle, working yacht chefs who teach it themselves: galley management, provisioning, menus, etiquette and deck duties — plus three days and nights aboard a catamaran.
Photographs from the school
Sent by the school
Anchor & Apron sent these when I wrote to ask whether this page described the school correctly. They are the school's own photographs, published with its permission and credited to it — and they do not move it up the page: where it sits was decided from its own course pages, before I wrote. Any school on this page can have the same space, on the same terms.
Six plates out of a boat's galley, off Mallorca.
The catamaran, at anchor off Mallorca. Three days and nights aboard are part of the course.
The teaching kitchen ashore.
Breaking down a fish, with the next two waiting their turn.
A lesson on the foredeck, notebooks out.
Lunch held out over the side, off Mallorca's south-west coast.
Canapés out to the courtyard, in the school's own aprons.
The house where these courses were taught, about twenty minutes from Palma. Its exact address goes to students two weeks before.
Breakfast, plated.
Dessert, plated.
Four of them, in the school's aprons, at sea.
On the lines at the bow. Deck duties are part of the course.
Cooking outside, by the pool.
A lesson at the bench.
Photographs: Anchor & Apron, sent by Amber, 6 Oct 2026. Used with permission; all rights remain theirs.
Visit Anchor & Apron ↗
Facts read on the school's own pages, 8 Oct 2026.

What you walk away with

The credential that counts here

Ship's Cook Certificate of Competency (UK MCA) — the document no flag will argue with · Certifying body: Maritime and Coastguard Agency (UK) — elsewhere, your vessel's flag

That is the one an outside body sets and marks, which is what separates it from a certificate a school prints itself — that proves you attended. We name which of the two a course actually gives you; ask the school the same question before you pay, and judge the answer yourself.

Read and corrected by the school

Amber, at Anchor & Apron, read this page and corrected it. The May 2027 two weeks is sold out and the school is launching a second, 30 May to 13 June 2027. The advanced weeks running now are full and the next is in May 2027. A place is held with an €800 deposit, then the rest in instalments. And the school is about twenty minutes from Palma. The rest, she wrote, is all correct.

Anchor & Apron ↗ · read by Amber · read it on 6 October 2026. A school corrects what this page says about itself. It does not move a place up this map, and it writes nothing about anybody else.

Same discipline, other sources

Also for Being a Chef at Sea

London, United Kingdom

Why you can trust this map

How a place gets on here, and what we do when it stops being true

There is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website, and too much of the internet is the second kind. Four instruments do the work, and every one of them is visible on the page you are already on.

We grade it in public, and publish what is missing. The Measure is five plain questions, not a score: is there a teacher we can name, can a stranger get in, will you be learning beside other people, is the craft alive in the place, and is there enough there to keep you going for years. An empty dot tells you which one we could not answer and why. A craft nobody has graded shows no meter at all, because an absence is not a zero.
We print what we checked and did NOT list. Every swept craft carries the places we looked at and turned down, each with its reason. That list is the part no marketplace prints, because a rejection is where the money is.
The claims are read back to their sources every night. A robot re-reads every link we publish against the school's own page each night, and every price and course name we have written a test for. page. When one stops matching three nights running, it is flagged for a human — and an entry that cannot be confirmed comes off. It is never softened.
Where we are not neutral, we say so above the recommendation. We run one paid week a year, with one teacher. His entry says that before it says anything good about him, and prints the way to reach him without us, at his prices.
Nothing here has been stood in yet. An open sheet means desk research, carefully done. No place on this map has been visited and dated by us. When one is, the check will carry a name and a date — and until then, the grade says so in the dots it leaves empty.
Nobody pays to be here, and nobody can pay to be left off. No commission, no listing fee, no tourist board. The order is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.

Before you trust any school — mine or anyone else's — ask these five things

Who actually teaches it? Can you find them by name, with a track record you can check yourself?
Is the craft alive in that place, or is the school the only thing there? A real scene has more than one good option.
What exactly do you walk away with — a recognised qualification, or a certificate they printed themselves? Ask which.
Can you speak to someone who did the course? A real person, not a testimonial on their own page.
What happens on a bad day — weather, an injury, a teacher who doesn't show? A serious place has an honest answer.

If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.

This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.