Private Chef Hire in North Yorkshire

Fit Chef Harrogate provides a private chef offering a variety of catering services, including specialist nutritional food. With a background in fine dining and high-level event catering, they have some great insights into what you should check in a prospective caterer for your event to ensure it all goes to plan!

What do you need to know from an organiser in order to provide a comprehensive quote?

To provide a comprehensive quote I require a date to ensure availability, the type of dining experience you are hosting such as canape and drinks party, sit down meal with the desired number of courses, hot food and dessert buffets - just a little detail so I know something of the expectation. An indication of the number of guests is also required, along with the location of the event and any dietary requirements. Once I have this information I can put together an accurate quote for the occasion.

What advice would you give to a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?

Whenever I have used a private chef or caterer in the past, there are three key questions that are important to me. The first is understanding how much experience the chef has - food is one of the most important elements of an event and reassurance that your supplier knows what they are doing is essential - the reviews always help! The second is finding out where they supply their ingredients from - provenance and seasonality are really important to me and I want to know it is a priority of the supplier too. And the third is that they are really passionate about feeding people! I want to get a sense that they really care about the guest experience and that they take pride in their offering and skills.

Please tell us a little bit about how and why you started the business.

I was born to feed people! I have had numerous jobs in the corporate, hospitality, charity and tourism worlds, but I get the most joy from giving people pleasure through food. The beauty of being a private chef is being able to see guest reactions to the food they are eating, and getting that feedback is just fantastic. Providing bespoke menus for clients so they can have exactly what they want allows me to use my knowledge and creativity, the variety that offers is great for my clients and for me! Years of event experience enables me to think of the whole occasion, not just the food, and this helps me to exceed client expectation and ensure seamless service at every event.

Please tell us about a booking you've had through Add to Event, how did it go? Would you recommend us to others?

I love this platform! It's so easy to use, and every event I have catered for has been a great success. The most unique has been catering for a hen party with only my electric double hob and a kettle, in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere at a glamping site! It was such fun, planning was key to success and the party were so grateful as they had struggled to find someone to take on the challenge. Only a platform like Add to Event worked for them. I prepared two different starters, a sharing feast and panna cotta with honeyed rhubarb and figs and hazelnut and orange biscuits for dessert - yummy all round! I was so pleased to be able to add to their event (ba-dum!) as I am that my catering friends recommended I offer my services through the website - I recommend it to suppliers and event organisers alike, and I've just added the new grazing tables offering to my services - great idea!