Private dining at home · Rayleigh, Essex
Private chef in Essex, at your own table
Extraordinary dining in your own space. 20 years in professional kitchens, trained under Gennaro Contaldo and Jamie Oliver, cooking across Essex and the South East.
From £75 per head · minimum spend £449
The evening
Watch the table lay itself
Every place set, every candle lit — an hour before your guests arrive.
The evening
Course by course
Each plate built at your counter, served at your table.
The evening
The whole evening, handled
Prep, service, and a clean kitchen before I leave.
The evening
Check your date
Four fields. Same-day reply.
A sample menu — Italian Fine Dining
Course by course, cooked in your kitchen
Antipasti — Starters
Carpaccio di Manzo
Frozen Tomato & Burrata Salad
and 3 more to choose from
Primi — First Courses
Risotto ai Frutti di Mare
Tagliatelle al Tartufo
and 3 more to choose from
Secondi — Main Courses
Filetto di Manzo
Branzino al Forno
and 3 more to choose from
Dolci — Desserts
Tiramisù
Panna Cotta alla Vaniglia
and 3 more to choose from
The full Italian Fine Dining menu → One of 43 menus, from six regions of the world. Browse the library →
From recent tables
The food, as it left the pass
Every plate here left this kitchen for a real table.
The method
How it works
Tell me the date and the headcount
Four fields, or a WhatsApp message. I reply the same day.
I design the menu around your table
Built around what you like, what is in season, and every dietary requirement in the room — so nobody gets a visibly different plate.
We refine it until it is right
Change anything. Swap a course, move a course, tell me a dish is not you. No charge for revisions.
I arrive early and handle everything
Prep, cooking, service, and a full clean-down before I leave. You do not touch a pan.
“Clean, balanced food with real attention to detail and proper respect for the ingredients.”
Chris · dinner party for six · February 2026
Twenty reviews, quoted as written →Occasions
Whatever the table is for
Eight services, one method — a menu written for the room, cooked in the room, cleaned down before I leave.
Since 2024 I've cooked 250 events through yHangry alone, rated 4.97 from 144 reviews.
Cooking in Rayleigh, Southend-on-Sea, Leigh-on-Sea, Hockley, Benfleet, Basildon, Chelmsford, Brentwood, Billericay, Colchester, Saffron Walden, Bishop's Stortford, Wickford, Maldon, Loughton and across Essex, from a kitchen in Rayleigh — and further out in Suffolk and Norfolk.
Wedding catering in Essex, London, Hertfordshire, Kent, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
Before you ask
Four things people ask first
What does a private chef cost in Essex?
From £75 per head with a £449 minimum spend. That covers ingredients, menu design, the chef on the night, the equipment I bring, and a full kitchen clean-down. Travel is quoted with the menu, based on the distance from Rayleigh, and shown as one line on your quote before you commit — nothing is added later. Tell me the date, the headcount and the occasion and you will have the exact figure the same day.
Do you cook in my kitchen?
Yes. I arrive early, bring what your kitchen does not have, cook and serve every course, then clean down before I leave. If your hob has two working rings, that is workable — it has been before.
How far in advance should I book?
Six to eight weeks for a Saturday in summer. Shorter notice is often possible, particularly midweek. Ask, because cancellations happen.
Can you handle allergies and dietary requirements?
Yes. Every menu is built to handle vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and dairy-free within the same courses, so nobody at the table gets a visibly different plate. Tell me the requirements when you enquire.
Availability
Check your date
Four fields is enough for me to tell you whether I am free and roughly what it costs.