We've moved our blog!

Hello Food Lovers!

We are so proud to announce that we recently launched a brand new website, with a great new look and feel. With our site now being 100% mobile friendly, you'll be able to easily browse our site from any device, tablet, smartphone, or laptop. Also, with a new interface and updating tools, we'll be able to put more content available on our site, and keep up to date with all our latest menus, offerings, and specials. We've added a bunch of new photos too! 

Check out our new site here: www.AtlantaPersonalChefService.com

We also will be posting all blog posts going forward on our also brand new blog. You can catch up on the blog posts that you've missed by clicking here, and be sure to check in regularly or subscribe to not miss any future posts.

We'll leave up this blog so you can continue to reference past posts, but we'll be sharing all new posts only on the new blog.

Cheers!

-Amy & the entire Atlanta Personal Chef Service team

Our team continues to improve and maintain high quality service and food

Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service we always strive to improve our professionalism when it comes to food and service. We did a dinner party this week that demonstrates just that. Our chefs did a fantastic job! The pictures below displays our level of professionalism. Our catering business has grown and our dinner party service has never been this busy! Our weekly service clients are enjoying our services more and more! We thank all of our clients that has helped us get here. Everyday we travel go to Buckhead, Vinnings, Marietta, Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Apharetta and help Atlanta families to get back on the dinner table. We are reaching our 5 year mark and  we couldn't do without our clients!

Taste VS experience VS art

Have you ever seen those pictures of food that looks way too good to be true and wondered if the food would taste any good?  Food photography is a big deal in the culinary world. Chefs go to extreme lengths to make sure their food looks like a fine dining restaurant commercial. However, a lot of the times the food does not taste that good. It’s like a very expensive wine. Was it worth spending 100 dollars for the wine? Probably not, but if you bought the bottle and you waited three years to drink the wine, then  it was likely worth the price. 

Food is about taste, experience and art. I put the three words in order of what matters the most. Food needs to taste good. If the food does not taste the good then the chef has failed. I've had plenty of bad looking dishes in my life that tasted fantastic and I always end up going back for more. Its like a good taco place. You are not looking for something fancy. You just want that tasty taco that you know you can get in that specific restaurant.

Experience is also a big deal. Experience is what will make a customer spend a lot of money at a expensive restaurant or catering company. Everything from the wait staff's smile to making sure that the food is hot. Going above and beyond to remember guests names is a big deal. Remembering someone's name is probably the biggest compliment you can pay someone.

Finally art. Art is what sums up the clients experience.  A good looking tasty food with a great experience will make the client go back time after time to the restaurant.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service's food combined with the experience is one of kind. One cannot go wrong in hiring our services. Our reviews speak for itself.  Want try what is like to hire a personal chef or catering company and have experience great food, experience and art? Give Atlanta Personal Chef Service a try!  

Dinner Party- A look back at 2015

Below are some of the of pictures that we took around this same time of year in 2015. We have certainly grown as company. Our services now include: cooking lessons, dinner party services, weekly service, corporate lunches, corporate parties, Holiday Parties, cooking classes, catering, food drop off (big parties), and buffet parties.

We are proud to be Atlanta Personal Chef Service! The best rated personal chef service in Atlanta!

Personal Chef Life in Atlanta

The life of personal chef it’s not easy. We deal with traffic all day long going from client house to client house. We often work independently (meaning you are responsible to send menus, grocery shopping, and cooking what THE CLIENT wants). I emphasize the word client because a personal chef cooks what the client wants! A lot of chefs come into the personal chef industry thinking they will cook what they want and it does not work like that. If a chef wants to make chefy food, then this is not the industry for them. We make food for what the client wants and lot of times it’s as a simple spaghetti and meatballs meal.

 Also, this job you have to be focus. The people you cook for enjoy different dishes from each other and you have to remember that.  You also have to remember what spices each client has in their cabinet and what allergies they have. Also, you do a lot of cleaning! In the restaurant you have a dishwasher. In the personal chef industry, you are the dishwasher combined with personal chef.  You wear multiple hats every day.  A lot of the times you are nutritionist and other times you are the dishwasher.  This is not an easy job, which is why it pays better than the average industry.

There are perks on being a personal chef. Working independently can be a great thing! You have more autonomy on your everyday life.  It can be very peaceful.  You don’t have people cursing in the kitchen like in the restaurants. You get to know your families, which for me is the best perk of the job.  Some clients they go above and beyond to be such a great people. In turn, you do want to cook great food for them!  You make extra snacks or birthday cake.  The clients that I work for through Atlanta Personal Chef Service are the nicest people I’ve ever met. You do your job well and they will support you.

Atlanta personal chef service does catering events, dinner party services, and cooking lessons apart from their weekly services. So, they will keep you busy! The dinner party service is where you apply the chef skills and cook some fine dining food. This is not an easy job, but Atlanta Personal Chef Service will sure help you succeed!

Personal Chef- Weekly service pictures

Below are pictures of our weekly services. Keep in mind that Atlanta Personal Chef Service does more than weekly services. We also have dinner party, catering, cooking lessons, weeding catering, and buffet party services. Give us a call find out more!

Now offering catering, cooking lessons, and corporate lunches services

Did you know that Atlanta Personal Chef Service now offers catering, cooking lessons, and corporate lunch services?

We offer catering service for groups of 20 or more people. To find out more click here

We offer cooking lessons for groups. We have cooking lessons with a big groups and we all have private lessons: To find out more click here:

We are also offer corporate lunches for employees as a part of their benefit package.

Below in a picture one of our events:  Give us a call and book with us today!

We Are More Than Just a Personal Chef and Catering Company

Atlanta Personal Chef Service is more than just another catering or personal chef company in Atlanta. We will never compete on price to give a less quality product to our clients. We spend hours perfecting our skills. Our food is combination of mixing the right ingredients with art. We take each of events like we were planing the events for us.

Our dinner parties is where our skills truly shine. For every dinner party that we do, no matter the size, we will have a meeting to discuss the best approach. We see which would be the best fit for the party and come up with a plan.

For our catering events, the same thoughtful process that goes into the dinner party goes to our catering events. But, catering events tends to be less formal. They tend to be less focus around the food and more focused on the atmosphere.

For weekly clients, we spend everyday going over on how can we improve our services. If the chef we sent you is not a good fit, then we will send another. With the weekly service, we really focus on what the family wants to eat, including the kids.

For our corporate lunches, our service is very professional. Our prices are very reasonable and competitive. We are easy to work with and we still maintain our quality.

  

Cooking Lessons in Atlanta

Did you you know that Atlanta Personal Chef Service now does cooking lessons in Atlanta? We have group lessons that starts at $45 per person and we also do private classes. The group lessons is a great to get introduced to cooking. You will get a glass of wine with your meal, while you are learning your new skills. Also, the chef will help you give you tip to pick the adequate cooking equipment for you what you need. These cooking lessons are great! Give it a shot and find out more by clicking here

Good chefs are not cheap- Dinner Party Service Explanation VS Catering Service prices

Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service we are very proud of cooking fine dinning food. Our services may sound pricey compared to what other chef service provide but, people need to know that there is more to cooking than just cooking. What our chefs provide is great food and a great experience. Just like at a restaurant, we will serve you and make sure that you water is filled. We do have cheaper services, which is when our catering comes in handy, but catering is very different than a fancy sit-down dinner party.

We recently had someone that told us that a chef in Atlanta was charging less than $20 per head for a 13 people sit down dinner party. You may ask ask me, are you kidding? No, I'm not! Chefs are willing to work for very low these days and people are willing to hire them. Chefs with little experience or chefs that have not grown on their profession.

I always tell our clients to the their research. Look for their reviews on google and yelp. Find out if they have their kitchen or not. Testimonials in their website does not count as review because anyone could have written that.

Having a personal chef, personal chefs to do a dinner party or catering event is not cheap. If the chefs are charging a cheap price its because something is wrong. Maybe they are not paying for the right insurance or cooking out of their home kitchen (which is illegal).

Catering is very different than dinner parties.  Catering for a large groups (20 or more) can be done for $20 to $50 per person, but dinner parties? no.

Give us a call learn more about us.

Atlanta Personal Chef Service Team

Atlanta personal chef service got together recently for a fun meeting and we took this picture. This our 2016 team! We are ready for the busy season and ready to book some weekly service meetings, catering, and dinner parties! 

Chef Andrew showing his skills cooking three courses from our Dinner Party Menu in Atlanta

Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service: We always striving to do our best! Below is Chef Andrew displaying his skills and cooking some of our dinner party items: Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin Medallions, apple pie spiced scalloped sweet potato, escarole as the main entree. These same items can also be served o our catering events, buffet parties, and cocktail parties!

#throwbackthursday Chef Shawn and Chef Marta at Our Catering Kitchen in Atlanta

Chef Shaw and Chef Marta Cooking at our Catering Kitchen in Atlanta. We do a lot of catering events. Atlanta Personal Chef Service does catering in all the cities in surrounding Atlanta and in all Atlanta neighborhoods. Our chefs are to serve you. Give us a call if you are in need of a personal chef or catering company. We are proud to be the best rated company in Atlanta!  

Some of our Dinner Party and Catering Pictures

These past few weeks we been busier than ever with our weekly in home chef services, dinner parties, and catering events. God has blessed us tremendously. Our team has done a fantastic job and here a few pictures that display some of their work. Most of events are done in the Atlanta area and its around cities. These cities include: Marietta, Sandy Springs, Alphraretta, Dunwoody, Kenensaw, and others. Also, we are now doing a lot more catering events and we just started doing corporate lunches as well. We are proud of the services we provide and proud of our team. Please contact us if you are looking for a chef or a catering company. We are proud to be the best chef rated company company in Atlanta!

Join us July 9th at the Sandy Springs Farmer's Market!

      LOCATION: 6100 Lake Forrest Dr NE, Atlanta, GA 30328
      TIME: 8:30 am - 12:00 pm

Join us on Saturday, July 9th to shop, grab a coffee or tea and a bite to eat, visit with friends, and appreciate the sense of community the market brings.  This is a great way to meet some of our personal chefs, and learn more about all the services we offer.  We'll be handing out free samples too!
 

What's the best choice for chicken stock?

As personal chefs, we are always striving to create intense delicious flavors in a timely manner. Stocks and especially chicken stock due to its more neutral flavor are a great go to liquid that can be used in the place of water to develop rich, deep delicious flavors. Use chicken stock instead of water when making rice, quinoa, and sautéing or steaming veggies. Keep in mind there is lots of flavor in stock, and also a lot of sodium. So, if you have a client sensitive to sodium, use low sodium or in extreme cases, just stick to water or a mixture of stock and water.

So which stock is a good pick? My all time favorite chicken stock to use is the Imagine brand, free range organic chicken stock. Its is always the low price of $2.69 at your local Kroger grocery store, and often 2 for $5 at Publix. Full, rich flavor with no added fake colors or flavors, its organic and also available in low sodium.

My least favorite stocks to use and the ones I often avoid are the store brands, and mega soup company brands like Progresso. They are often filled with msg and fake caramel colors, and basically taste like salty water.

I hope this can help out someone searching for the perfect stock.

Cook on!
Personal Chef Nia


Nia has been a personal chef with Atlanta Personal Chef Service since January of 2016 and currently cooks dinner for four families on a regular basis. She also assists the chef team with dinner parties and special events. To find out more about Chef Nia, visit our About Us page here, and to find more about our services, click here.

Valentine's Day 2016

Last year there were 6 lucky couples in Atlanta that had arranged for a personal chef to come cook dinner for them in their homes on Valentine’s Day.  And I helped arranged each one of them.  So, around 3 pm, all the chefs and I met outside WholeFoods, so they could pick up last minute needed ingredients (vanilla bean gelato anyone?) and let me tell you, that was a planning mistake!  We couldn’t even find parking available at the Whole Foods on West Paces Ferry, and the whole place was a zoo!  There was literally a live band playing music inside the Whole Foods, I suppose to keep stressed shoppers a little bit calmer?   The place was chaos.  No gelato, no scallops, and shelves empty of your basic ingredients.  I still can’t figure out why everyone was in Whole Foods Valentine’s Day, but I am guessing many people planned a romantic evening in, and then were as surprised as I was to see the crowds in the middle of the afternoon!

This year, we’re planning better, and we’ll have all our needed ingredients on hand come Valentine’s Day afternoon.  In fact, we’re working all month to get everything ready.  This week, our head pastry chef is working on making the black sesame bonbons from scratch.   Our Guayaquil chocolate already came in (from Ecuador!), so we can get to work at our Prep Kitchen in Atlanta.

Hiring a personal chef for Valentine’s Day isn’t the cheapest option, but it will allow you to escape the madness that ensues around a busy, food-crazy city like Atlanta.  Our team of personal chefs has already created a wonderful menu (don’t worry, you still have options to choose from!) with you in mind, that will leave you with an amazing Valentine’s Day memory.  Passion fruit in the dessert, to remind you of the passion in your romance; chocolate, well we all know why you have to have chocolate on Valentine’s Day J  This year we’ll be brining champagne glasses for a pre-dessert toast.  Don’t drink alcohol, no worries, we’ll swap it out for a sparkling cider.  Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be stressful or chaotic, it can peaceful and relaxing at home, with a great dinner prepared just for the two of you.

 

What should you expect?  Your chef for the evening will arrive about 2 ½ hours before your scheduled dinner time to start getting everything ready.  They’ll set your table with candles, hand-made menus, and have everything looking great for dinner time.  In the kitchen, they’ll be busy getting all the food ready.  Your kitchen will smell wonderful, and best part, you won’t have to be in there cooking and cleaning yourself!  At your scheduled dinner time, dinner will be served to you course by course, each course cleared before the next.

From a Chef’s Point of View

Like many careers in the food service industry, being a personal chef takes a combination of training, attention to detail, and technique to succeed. While there is much in common with being a restaurant chef, personal chefs face many additional challenges when it comes to private dinners and personal meals for families. As a personal chef we handle many behind the scene adjustments and organizational matters such as; menu planning, food prep, food cost, and customer relations, in addition to the quality of the food and the organization process.

Menu Planning

Even at the most basic level of planning a menu we keep a lot of things into consideration. Is the produce seasonal, if so how can we use it in a memorable way? Do the seasonal ingredients flow nicely with the rest of the menu? Once we tackle the premeditated questions of the produce/ ingredients we also have to keep in thought of clientele and type of dinner we will be cooking for. The pre-planning is a necessary measure for a successful dinner party.

Food Prep

Depending on the type of dinner/ party we need all hands on deck! Even if it’s just prepping ideas, all are welcome in this process. Communication is key to keep organized as there are a lot of courses and additions to the menu to remember. Most likely everyone on staff is accountable for the parts and pieces to bring together the entire dinner. With food prep we also keep track of the type of dishware, silverware, physical menus, place settings, and wine / specialty drinks.

Attention to detail

As a personal chef we are also in charge of décor, table arrangements and food presentation. Setting up, cooking, running and clearing the dining room all a part of the process. Creating a great first impression to our client and all of their guests is what we strive for.

Flexibility & Creativity

Recipes may need to be adjusted to cope with food allergies, and cooking methods may have to be altered to conform to religious and or dietary requirements or personal preferences. Having an imaginative and adaptable chef team allows us to achieve a well-balanced dinner party event in these situations, and instill complete confidence in our clientele.

Leadership?

As a team we all wear many hats when it comes to leadership roles within a private dinner or event. One must be accountable for the supplies, food ordering, on-site cooking at the home or event, and much more. The beauty of having a well diverse team allows others to strive and grow where their natural leadership thrives. strive and grow where their natural leadership thrives.

Being a Personal Chef- The feedback

Here at Atlanta Personal Chef Service we like to make communication as easy as possible.  Our clients have a variety of ways to get in touch with us including phone calls, text, e-mail, in person, or via their personal menu notebook, which is always in the kitchen.  If we have a client that isn't happy with a meal for any reason, we need to be able to correct the problem and learn how we could have made the dish differently so that would have enjoyed it.  Communication is key for the happiness of both the client and chef.

My preferred method of feedback is the notebook. That is because the majority of the time, I
don’t see my clients. Talking face to face is great because you get to see the big smile you put on someone's face for the meal you prepared for them.  In this notebook, the chefs write for the family what meal they will be having for the evening. If the family likes the meal, they can simply just say one word: "AWESOME," "GREAT," "LOVED IT!" or in certain cases, "NOT OUR FAVORITE." They can even just use a star rating: one to five stars.  The notebook is great because if I want to repeat a meal, I can refer back to the notebook to see the likes or dislikes of the meal. For instance, I  made a meal that had a spicy aioli sauce. I love spicy food, so my taste buds couldn’t really tell there was any heat to the sauce. Using the notebook, my client informed me that they had tasted the sauce in advance and found it was way too spicy for them. Luckily, I was able to correct the problem by make a different batch of the aioli. The next week, the feedback in the notebook stated that the sauce was just right for them. I was happy, and most importantly, the client was happy. This was very helpful for me and any feedback is better than no feedback. Our clients just have to know that leaving a "negative comment" or letting us know they didn’t like something isn't disrespectful and doesn't hurt our feelings, it is actually essential to making great food that each family enjoys.

Our job as a personal chef is to deliver PERSONALIZED SERVICE! Everyone's taste buds are not the same. We need our clients just as much as they need us, so that we can create meals for them to their personal preference.

Interested in experiencing our Personal Chef Service?  Give us a call at 404-913-4633 or visit our website here.

Gena's Client Notebook and Feedback

Valentine’s Day with Atlanta Personal Chef Service

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? How about a romantic evening in the comfort of your own home, while a talented chef pampers you with an elegant dinner over candle light? Valentine’s Day is still over a month away and we only have a few spot left. This year we put together two different menus, but you can mix and match between them. Don’t procrastinate this year and do it right with Atlanta Personal Chef Service.  Visit our webpage to view more information about Valentine's Day 2015 with the best team of chefs in town.

 

"His and Hers"

Duo of Tomato Bisque and Cream of Asparagus Soup garnished with a Parmesan crisp and Asparagus tips

Spinach and warm Brie salad with Apples and Walnuts tossed in Champagne Vinaigrette served with a Buttered Crostini

Marinated Hanger Steak and Herb Crusted Lamb Chop with Cabernet sauce over roasted Parmesan potatoes and sautéed Asparagus tips

Mousse au Chocolate over Chocolate Chiffon cake garnished with Crème Anglaise and fresh Raspberries



"Land and Sea"


Caramelized Onion and Cana de Cabra Cheese tartlet garnished with Lemon infused Arugula and Balsamic glaze

Red Wine poached Pear salad garnished with Stilton cheese and a Cranberry Crouton
 

Rosemary crusted Pork Tenderloin and seared Scallops with Cherry demi sauce over roasted Root Vegetable pureé and braised Brussels sprouts

Strawberry Shortcake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream garnished with Strawberry coulis and Chantilly Cream