Cooking with top chefs
Virtual classes put you in their home kitchens
“My wife and I have always loved sitting at a bar or chef counter and that exchange you get with owners and chefs. This gives that similar intimacy but in a flipped environment where you’re cooking, too.” — Will Hare
Back in February, Nat Gelb was gathering people around dinner tables at restaurants in a dozen cities per week. His membership-based supper club, the Tasting Collective, was about to launch in its 13th city, topping 6,000 members nationwide. And then came the pandemic.
“It was March 15 — everything came to a screeching halt,” recalls Gelb. “We went from doing seven figures to zero overnight.”
For the foreseeable future, there would be no more family-style dinners with strangers sharing wine. No more chefs relaying stories to cozy rooms full of guests. And no more Tasting Collective, period.
Gelb took a couple weeks to let it all set in. But by April, he was back with a new business idea, Chefstreams. The goal: To help chefs across the country who were hurting with him and continue joining people through food.
Chefstreams invites celebrated chefs like James Beard-award winner Kwame Onwuachi of Washington, D.C., and Jon Yao, a 2018 Food & Wine magazine best new chef, to host interactive cooking experiences virtually from their home kitchens.
Chefstreams has just kicked off a month and a half of cooking classes rooted in Philly. Experiences include those with Kalaya’s Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon; Food & Wine 2020 Best New Chef Camille Cogswell; Joncarl Lachman of Noord and Winkle; and Ben Puchowitz