Top TV chef Rosemary Shrager is not known for shirking a challenge – she’s cooked kangaroo tail in the jungle on I’m A Celebrity and danced on Let’s Dance for Comic Relief after a painful fall.

So opening the new Rosemary Shrager Cookery School in Tunbridge Wells this summer must seem like a breeze by comparison.

“It’s going to be absolutely amazing, I am so excited by it and I just think Tunbridge Wells is brilliant,” said Rosemary, prior the opening of the school in the historic Corn Exchange.

“I was offered the opportunity by Christopher (her friend, the Marquess of Abergavenny) to use this wonderful space. So far we’ve had 90 people book courses and we haven’t even opened – not bad is it!”

Rosemary has planned every last details of the school as well as the new Deli and Cafe alongside it. And she and Executive Chef John Rogers plan to teach an exciting programme of courses for professional and amateur cooks once it’s up and running.. “We will obviously use fresh local, seasonal produce in the school wherever possible,” said Rosemary. “We will also be using Kentish and Sussex wines - I think the combination of local produce and local wines will work very well.”

The opening of the school in The Lower Pantiles, which is fast becoming a Tunbridge gourmet hotspot, is the realisation of a long held ambition for Rosemary, who has worked with Michelin starred Jean-Christophe Novelli. Aside from running a successful cookery school at Swinton Park in her native Yorkshire, she has starred in a string of hit TV shows, including Ladette to Lady, Kitchen Showdown and Rosemary Shrager’s School for Cooks. But the move to Tunbridge Wells brings her closer to her daughter Kate and twin grand daughters who live in Woolwich. Despite this, the infectiously enthusiastic 61 year old shows no signs of slowing up on her hectic schedule of cooking, teaching, writing and appearing on TV. She said she even had to find things to do when she was in the jungle for I’m A Celebrity... because she likes to “keep myself busy!”

She confessed the worst thing about her jungle adventure was all the “washing” screened on TV.

“Keeping my dignity while showing my boobs to have a wash was the hardest part,” laughed Rosemary.

So what does she anticipate will be the Next Big Thing in the world of cooking?

“Curing – I think the next big thing is going to be homemade curing and preserving,” said Rosemary.

The Rosemary Shrager Cookery School is at The Corn Exchange, The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells TN2 5TE www.rosemaryshrager.com