So you want to be a home chef?
Eating out’ is music to the ears, full of expectations and excitement. Still restaurant food with its additives and artificial flavours gets dreary, not to mention expensive, making it impractical to eat out as often as one would like to. There are singles and working professionals who crave real food which is the slot most home chefs intend to fill as it is a given that no meal tastes as good as home-cooked food — delicious, appealing and wholesome. The authentic flavours reminiscent of mother’s touch would suffice to get hooked on to home chefs. Whether you are an executive chefturned-home cook like Samira Mistry or a homemaker like Big Momma’s Poonam Sethi, home chefs are here to stay!
Feasibility
If you have contemplated putting to good use your culinary skills, with no age limitations, becoming a home-chef is a convenient way to embark on proprietorship basis as it is a low budget start-up. Using your own kitchen supplies, utensils and packaging boxes (they get reimbursed via your fees), makes for low overhead expenses. When Kanchan Ahuja’s family and friends encouraged her to put to use the culinary magic in her hands, she started off as a home chef specialising in Sindhi cuisine but soon takeaway orders surpassed her space and along with her son Sannat Ahuja, she opened her Sindhi restaurant Juss by Sindhful in Khar. In a year’s time, it has become hugely successful in the niche cuisine zone. On the other hand, Poonam Sethi’s home-made dips, multi-cuisine food and desserts got rave reviews among her clique urging her to venture into opening Big Momma’s Café in Wadala. With increasing patrons, space constraints made her shut down the café and opt for Big Momma’s takeaway orders only. Being a home chef
counts among some of the most flexible jobs one can think of. To test the waters, you can start off with part-time or weekends. It helps you to embark small and expand, or remain small. With digital networking taking stock of marketing, a family member can help with handling social media and other promotions.
Know the pulse
No prescribed qualification is needed for this business. Irrespective of being a qualified or amateur chef, all you need is a flair for cooking! “I just breathe in the heady aromas of masalas, ghee and subzis that crackle when heaped over hot parathas. It’s food that is wholesome, comforting with a homely feel but at the same time exciting and novel. I cook with zest and flourish, a melange of fresh flavours with exotic palates and the good life,” gushes the dynamic and affable Harsh Shodhan, an ex-IT businessman and self-taught topnotch chef who progressed from a humble home chef to setting up The Gourmet Kitchen & Studio — a
flourishing vegetarian catering unit with traditional and exotic cuisines in a span of seven years, with industrialists and celebrity clients under his belt. Samira Mistry, a full-fledged qualified Executive Chef with 5 star hotels who quit her job to become Chef Consultant and a leading home-baker, reveals, “It’s my urge for baking that led me to become a home-baker. Along with setting up kitchens for hotels, I indulge in my passion which offers me contentment.”
Get rolling
First thing would be to decide upon your forte. Will you be a vegan chef or focus on a speciality cuisine? Health diet or vegan meals? Ideally, it is advisable to start small to get the hang of the trade and then expand.
Just six months down the line, Nasreen Navani is the pioneer behind the emerging Masalaesque Mom-made meals, operating from a central kitchen in Colaba. She isn’t a classically trained chef but has experience in the food industry for 40 years having set up restaurants in Thailand. Her son Rushail reveals, “Our masalas are sourced from all over the world and the family curated recipes are passed down from generations like Shammi and Kohinoor kebabs. Our signature biryanis have been patented like the
Lucknowi dum Biryani and the Mughlai Biryani.”
Poonam Sethi organises meal boxes and caters to family gatherings besides takeaways.
Break-even period
Chef Shodhan places The Gourmet Kitchen & Studio on par with high-end restaurants as he says, “As a premium service provider, we give very personalised experience right from menu setting, presentation, flavour profiles to service. So we would be competitive to the fine dine restaurants.”
“Our prices are in the mid-level range as compared to other restaurants and delivery outlets as we use only high quality ingredients, no additives or artificial colours. The portions we serve are also sumptuous,” enthuses Rushail Navani. Poonam Sethi seconds it by revealing, “After one year we are managing to break even as party orders have just started to come in.”
On the flip side
Unless you have thorough confidence in your culinary expertise, it is not prudent to get into the business of home chef. Since you are the sole person responsible for the food you offer, a routine or lacklustre meal can spawn adverse publicity. “The secret lies in rotating the menu and customising to your client needs” says Sethi.
Crucial elements in catering jobs are managerial abilities and administrative know-how — ensure they are in place. To carry out meal orders, punctuality is of utmost importance in addition to exemplary service. Handling of food in a neat and hygienic manner, is another vital aspect to be paid attention to. Lastly, as in any other profession, buttress yourself for encounters of bad-tempered and difficult clients who make whimsical diktats.
Down the line
“The future is extremely bright and growing simply because of the niche personalised services they provide with cuisine specialisation. Since everyone cannot know every cuisine this market is going to go great guns!” visualises Chef Shodhan. For anyone with a yen for all things gastronomic, a personal or home chef business could be very gratifying and greatly lucrative. Besides, it is a win-win situation for both — the consumer gets the bliss of home food and for exploiting his culinary prowess, the chef gets accolades!