Food

It is a special day. You want to make sure everything is perfect for the romantic meal you are planning tonight. You make one phone call and then, reassured, go back to work. When you get home, your other half is waiting for you in the living room. On the coffee table are two martinis and two appetizers. The first one is lemon and saffron chicken brochettes. The second one is wild mushrooms, garlic, and thyme bouchees. You know the soup course, classic vichyssoise, is in the works. The salad course will soon follow. The baby leaf salad with roasted pepper and black olive drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette is your favorite. You sit down, take your shoes off, and pick up the martini. While you relax, you smell the main course of seafood raqut with lobster, scallop, shrimp and mussels in a champagne infused tomato sauce. The rice pilaf and vegetable ratatuie will accompany the main course.

Sure maybe you could have prepared this meal, but you know that you would not be sitting down now enjoying your first mouthful of brochette without worrying about the next courses. Once you made that phone call from your office, you knew that everything would be perfect. Instead of spending hours planning the meal, shopping at several different markets, and locked in your kitchen cooking and digging up your fine china, you made one phone call. It was to the personal chef whom you hired to prepare your meal. He has experience working in restaurants in Europe, the U.S., and the Caribbean. His services include everything from menu consultation to food preparation to serving and finally the clean up. When your personal chef leaves, the kitchen is spotless, the dinner table cleared, and you can enjoy the rest of your evening without worrying about the traffic on your way home.

The personal chef is not just for the super rich anymore. Many Washington area couples are finding that it is easier to call a personal chef then to venture out to their favorite restaurants. The food, the service, and the cost of a dinner prepared by a personal chef rivals meals prepared at the areas finer restaurants.

Couples have different reasons for turning to the personal chefs. For some, hours stuck in the gridlock of their commute have made going back out into traffic for a meal at a decent restaurant unbearable. For those people, the convenience of hiring a personal chef to prepare a meal is irresistible. For others, the stress of preparing those big holiday meals for large numbers of holiday guests is a stress that they can do without. What are the other options? You can spend hours stuck in a kitchen or you can organize the trip out to the closest restaurant. Preparing a dinner for large numbers of people is no small feat. Bringing your guests to a restaurant on a holiday requires reservations, transportation, and other drawbacks. Others prefer to enjoy a romantic meal at home without complications. Whatever reason, Washington area couples are turning to the personal chef and they are keeping it quiet. Why? You may hear rumors that your neighbors had a meal catered or someone must have taken some cooking courses. However, you will not hear that your neighbors are using a personal chef. Couples are hoarding the names of the good personal chefs. What use is having the number of a personal chef, if you cannot use it when you want? With holidays or special occasions always coming up, no security clearance is high enough to be trusted with the contact information of your favorite personal chef.