Private Chef Menus La Rochelle

These are the menus I get asked for most. Each is three courses, built to come out of an ordinary home kitchen and be eaten round an ordinary table with no ceremony about it. Take one as it is written, pull courses from two or three of them, or use the whole page as a starting point and I'll write you something that belongs to your evening and nobody else's.

Prices are per person and cover the shopping, the cooking, the service and the washing up. They move a little with your guest numbers, how far I'm driving and what the ingredients actually cost that week, which is why the figures below are a starting point and not a bill.

Everything here travels: La Rochelle and the villages around it, the Île de Ré, the rest of Charente-Maritime and up into the Vendée.

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Three courses, €50 a head

The six I cook most often

Enough to make the evening feel like an occasion, without turning your kitchen into a production. Any of these can be plated properly or put down the middle of the table for people to help themselves.

Courgette tart with melon, prosciutto and whipped cheese, plated as a private chef starter

What the price covers

Everything except the wine

I shop on the morning of your meal, arrive an hour or two before you want to eat, and bring my own knives, pans and anything the dish needs that your kitchen is unlikely to own. You supply an oven, a hob, about a metre of worktop and the plates.

Between courses I'm in the kitchen, not hovering at your elbow. When the coffee goes down, the pans are washed, the bins are out and your kitchen looks the way it did before I got there. That last part is the bit people tell their friends about.

Wine is the one thing left off the list. Most people would rather open their own and I'm happy to pour it. If you'd rather not think about it at all, I buy from growers I know around Aunis and can bring bottles picked against the menu.

€60 to €65 a head

A bit more work on the plate

Slower cooking, better cuts and ingredients that cost more to buy well. Worth it when dinner is the whole point of the evening rather than the thing you do before the rest of it.

€95 a head

For the ones that matter

Milestone birthdays, anniversaries, the dinner where somebody is going to make a speech. Two menus built around fillet of beef, because nobody has ever been disappointed by it.

Smoked salmon with ribboned cucumber, chives and crème fraîche on a blue and white plate

Nobody eats a lesser dinner

The menus bend, and they should

All eleven can be made vegetarian. Most can be made vegan or gluten free without the person eating it being handed a plate of side vegetables and a sympathetic look. The trick is knowing before I write the menu rather than on the night, so tell me everything when you enquire, including the bits people are embarrassed to mention.

Children usually want to eat two hours before the adults do, and rarely want scallops. I'll cook them something they'll actually finish, early enough that they're out of the way before the grown-ups sit down.

If you'd rather not choose at all, send me a short list of what your guests love and what they won't touch, and I'll send a menu back. That's how a good half of my bookings start.

Charentais melon with prosciutto and herb oil, a summer private chef starter in Charente-Maritime

Written for the week you book

The same menu in July and January

Seasonal vegetables is the vaguest phrase on this page, so here's what it actually means. In July the Île de Ré new potatoes are in, the Charentais melon is worth building a starter around, and the tomatoes need nothing but salt and oil. That starter slot on the bistro menu becomes melon and prosciutto without me asking.

In January the same slot goes back to the warm goat's cheese tartlet it was written as, the vegetables turn into roots and chard, and the puddings get heavier because the weather has earned it. The menu name stays the same. What arrives on the plate does not.

The seafood follows the same logic. Marennes-Oléron oysters and the day's catch off the quay are a few minutes down the road, so when something lands on the quay that beats what we'd agreed, I'll ring you and let you decide.

Questions I get asked about the menus

How much do your private chef menus cost?

The set menus on this page are €50 per person for three courses cooked and served in your home, rising to €65 and then €95 for the celebration menus. Delivered family meals, where the food arrives cooked and I don't stay to serve, start at €25 per person. Quotes are free and written for your evening rather than pulled off a price list.

Can we take courses from different menus?

Yes, and most people do. Someone always wants the tandoori chicken and the tarte tatin in the same sitting. I price the combination rather than the menu it came from, so ask for whatever you actually want to eat.

What do you need in our kitchen?

An oven, a hob and roughly a metre of worktop. I bring my own knives, pans and anything specialist, and I've cooked every one of these menus in rental kitchens with two rings and no extractor fan.

Can the menus be adapted for allergies or a vegan guest?

Every one of them, at no extra cost. Tell me who's eating and what they can't have when you enquire, and the menu gets written around it from the start instead of one guest being handed a plate of vegetables.

Do these prices include the shopping?

They include the ingredients, the shopping trip, the cooking, the serving and the clearing up. Wine is the usual exception. Most people open their own, though I can bring bottles from growers I know if you'd rather not think about it.

How far ahead should we book?

A fortnight is comfortable for most of the year. July, August and the fortnight around Christmas fill up early, so give me three or four weeks if your date falls in one of those.

Not the menu you were after?

If what you actually need is midweek dinners rather than a dinner party, have a look at my family meals, cooked to order and delivered to your door. For weddings and larger parties the food is quoted differently again, and the wedding chef page explains how.

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Private Chef Menus In La Rochelle

Deciding what to feed everyone is the hard part, isn't it?

Eleven three-course menus I cook in your kitchen, from a weeknight bistro supper to a full celebration

Ask about a menu

The six I cook most often

French Bistro

Italian

Indian

Asian

British

Greek

Everything except the wine

A bit more work on the plate

Vegetarian

Modern French

Mediterranean

For the ones that matter

Terre & Mer

French Celebration