Thread: Personal Chef

Being a chef Ive often wondered about doing more personal work and getting out of the restaurant business. Where I can serve 1 or 2 families excellent cuisine.

If you had access to this service would you use it?

If you have one is it worth it?

What do you expect from your personal chef?

Any thoughts????

One of my personal goals to achieve is one day have a personal chef (unless my future wife is a badass chef).

Always wondered what the cost would be for a good one. ?

I've done some Personal work,but as a side work.I would't rely on it on a full time basis at my stage in my career,but it could be very lucrative,but also know it can be up and down.I have friends that have done the "yacht thing",but even they,after time,always come back to steady work that provides 401k,benefits,etc.I would advise to attempt to break into it on a part time basis at first

I have a friend who is a personal chef and she is able to serve more then one or two families by making multiple meals for them and freezing them so that they can just re-heat it during the week.

i would never consider it b/c i'm far too picky, unless your name was Michel Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, or Alain Passard.

- chuck

As a single father with four kids, I'm a perfect candidate. I cook, and have taken probably 50+ 1-5 hour courses at various Viking Culinary Institute centers. They're a mix of beginnner-to-intemediate classes, covering everything from fundamentals to some great menus. But as a practical reality I am also an executive with four kids, and little time to prepare meals except occasionally. As a result, we were eating too much pizza and burgers, and going out way too much.

So I hired a personal chef for a year. We didn't want anything frozen, so what we agreed on was four meals per week, which would leave us with three nights to cook ourselves or eat out. The chef came in on Mondays and Wednesdays, prepared meals in our kitchen, and each time would leave one meal on the stove / in the oven and ready to serve, and one in the refrigerator for heating the next evening. He also gave us pages and pages of menus, which made it great for the kids, as they could almost always find things to agree on.

What we liked about it, obviously, was that we were eating at home. Which meant no changing clothes or getting back in the car to go out, no distractions, and plenty of time to sit down together without someone checking constantly on and preparing the food, and a chance to talk about our days together. The quality of the food was also excellent - as good as or better than most local restaurants. And over time we both tried new things we had never had before, and the chef learned a lot about our palates and preferences.

What we didn't like was the fact that we would frequently end up getting invited out or over to someone's house at least one or two of those nights per week, so we would either decline an invitation we really wanted to accept, or we would end up swimming in food. But that was more our fault than the chef's.

What I found that we really wanted / needed was a full-time private chef to prepare 3 meals-a-day, including packing lunches for the kids during the school year. Likewise we needed someone who had more experience with vegetables and lighter / healthier meal preparation, as everything our chef made tasted great because it was covered in butter and sauces.

In sum, I think we will ultimately end up getting a private chef, although the expense will certainly be much more. As far as the expense, I would say it was comparable to an upper end local restaurant. Which four days per week, particularly when your plan is to eat out a couple of those other nights each week, can add up in a hurry. Well worth it for us, but maybe a tough sell in the current economy.

How would a personal chef be priced? Per meal? Per Person? Per Day? Per hour? Or a combination?

I would not be into it simply because I enjoy cooking so much but I can imagine there are LOTS of people that would be in the market for gourmet meals cooked in the home at will!

Chefs charge per person per meal ... or at least i n my own experience.

last one we dealt with was something like $40 - $60 per meal + cost of groceries + travel expenses. For food for 4-5.

food for 2 is around $30-$50 + cost of groceries + expenses. and minimum order of 3 meals. they prep all food in house and use your containers for freezing.

THats IT!? Wow that seems cheap......

my wife is a kick ass chef. i am lucky