Show off at your dinner party, hire a chef

Published Dec 15, 2014

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London - Raising a glass to her 11 dining companions, the bubbles in Claire Lightbody’s champagne sparkle in the candlelight.

A waitress emerges to clear away the goat’s cheese ravioli starter before serving each guest with a lime and lemon granita palate cleanser, complete with tiny limoncello spheres — something Heston Blumenthal would surely be proud of.

Next up is a vibrant pea, mint and honeyed ham hock soup, each bowl perched amid an ornate nest of twigs. Then, beef wellington and a mint chocolate delice for dessert.

You might imagine that this decadent feast is being served in a swanky Michelin-starred restaurant — the kind most of us can only dream of affording to go to.

In fact, the setting is a lot closer to home. Well, Claire’s home anyway. It is the dining room of her five-bedroom country house near Southwell in rural Nottinghamshire.

More impressive still is the fact that Claire, 40, an international sales director for a homeware company, has not lifted a finger all night. Neither, has she decanted a stash of Waitrose ready meals to pass off as her own.

So how has Claire pulled off this amazing feat? Claire’s secret is one which a growing number of middle-class women share. Quite simply, they hire a private chef to slave over their stoves so they can sit back and socialise with friends. Claire, who’s married to Jonathan, 41, a businessman, is adamant it’s the way forward.

“Some might say that paying up to £750 for a dinner party for 12 people is extravagant,” she says. “But we work long hours and earn good money, and I’m often away in the Far East, so to me it’s a small price to pay for buying quality time with close friends.

“Having someone cook for you in your own home is intimate and indulgent, from the canapes and cocktails to the menu and even how the table is decorated.”

Still. Many women would struggle to justify the equivalent cost of a month’s food shopping for a family on one dinner party. And if friends are true friends, wouldn’t they be equally as happy with a casual lasagne?

It would seem not. The popularity of TV shows like MasterChef and The Great British Bake Off has raised expectations of what people should serve at their own dinner parties. A hearty casserole or fish pie just won’t cut the mustard any more.

Additionally, a recent survey concluded that the average dinner party host spends six-and-a-half hours preparing food.

“There’s a significant trend for ordinary middle-class people wanting to hire chefs to cook for special occasions in their own homes,” says Tracy Jewitt of Greycoat Lumleys, an agency that provides house staff including nannies, tutors and butlers.

A year ago, in response to demand, they launched a spin-off business, My Chef, dedicated purely to this.

“Many people told us they’re turning to dinner parties again because they’re fed up with the waiting lists at high-end restaurants,” she says. “Others said they’d installed incredible kitchens and dining rooms at great expense yet never made use of them.”

Claire Lightbody and her husband moved into their home a year ago. “We’ve got a grand dining table that seats 12 and enough bedrooms and bathrooms for our guests to stay over. Many of them bring their little ones with them too and they sleep upstairs while we eat,” says Claire, who doesn’t have children herself.

Her private chef of choice is Michelle Burge, 40, who describes herself as a home gourmet. She is based in Nottingham and her clients include sports stars.

Claire first hired Michelle to accompany the extended family on a break to a cottage in Norfolk in 2011 where they celebrated her father-in-law’s 70th birthday.

“We didn’t want anyone to be put upon with shopping and cooking so we paid more than £1 000 for Michelle to come with us, which included all the food for the weekend,” Claire adds. “She produced every morsel that we ate, including making croissants for breakfast, picnic lunches and a posh birthday dinner party.”

She and Jonathan have since hired Michelle a dozen times to cater for them, including a five-course meal for Claire’s 40th. “As the host, you invite your friends over because you want to spend time in their company, but when you’re doing the cooking you miss out on the conversation,” Claire says. “Having Michelle means we can fully engage with our friends — she even brings a waitress.

“I’ve never tried to hoodwink my guests into thinking I’ve done the cooking, I always make sure Michelle gets the credit.”

The total cost sounds a lot, and per head it works out at anything from about £50 to £80 (about R900 to R1 500) depending how extravagant Claire wants to be with the menu. Naturally she would never dream of asking her guests to contribute financially.

“It would be the height of rudeness,” she says. “I wouldn’t cook a meal myself and then expect everyone to chip in. So why is this any different?”

Meanwhile, in Frome, Somerset, Daisy Steel regularly hires a chef to dazzle her dinner guests at the farmhouse she shares with husband Jonathan, 43, a software developer, and their five children, Jack, 22, Poppy, 20, Jasmine, 17, Ben, 13, and Joe, eight.

“We first started hiring chefs in our 30s when we lived in London, but since we moved here four years ago and discovered that the social scene revolves around dinner parties, we’ve done it a lot more,” says Daisy, 43, who works in television.

“While I’m happy cooking Sunday lunch for 20 people, when it comes to dinner parties I’m a perfectionist and put myself under a lot of pressure to shine.” The antidote to Daisy’s stress is local chef Annie Austin, whom she discovered three years ago when she and Jonathan needed someone to create a dinner for 100 people to celebrate 25 years together.

“We were so impressed with her food that we’ve been hiring her to create small dinner parties for us ever since,” Daisy adds. “A three- course dinner for ten people works out at about £400 which might sound a lot, but you could spend that going to a gastropub.”

Tracy Jewitt concurs that most of the people who hire chefs through Greycoat Lumleys are time-starved professionals in their 30s to 50s.

“They work really hard, so every spare moment is precious,” she says. “If you think of the bill for dining in a Michelin-starred restaurant, it’s much more affordable to hire a chef.”

Daisy discovered this the expensive way. Celebrity favourite hotel Babington House — the venue for the weddings of Zoe Ball, Amanda Holden and James Corden — is a mile from her home and last year she organised a birthday dinner there for Jonathan.

“There were 14 of us and the bill, including booze, came to more than £1 500,” Daisy says. “Yes, it was wonderful, but we can have food cooked by Annie at home that’s every bit as delicious and costs half the price.”

Is Daisy ever tempted to squirrel Annie out of the back door and pass the food off as her own?

“Never,” she laughs, “but equally I never feel like it’s a cop out. People love it — as a guest you don’t want to see your hostess looking fraught as she dashes between dining room and kitchen either.”

It’s a sentiment shared by Caroline Maude, 50, a freelance theatre consultant. Despite being an avid cook, she calls upon chef Kathryn Rodbert — who runs a company called Madeleine’s Kitchen — when she feels she can’t stand the heat in the kitchen.

“My husband and I do quite a lot of entertaining, and we love to cook but occasionally, either as a treat or when life is just too busy, we’ll hire Kathryn to cater for a dinner party,” says Caroline, who lives near Petersfield in West Sussex with husband Anthony, a theatre set designer, and their children Celeste, 18, Ottoline, 15, and Tallulah, 14.

“The trouble is that we’re ambitious about our own cooking which means it’s expensive because we buy ingredients such as pheasant and scallops. Two days are wiped out buying the food and preparing dinner, and another half day clearing up the mess afterwards. Hiring Kathryn removes that stress.”

Claire Lightbody sums it up: “It’s not just about eating fabulous food that you haven’t had to cook yourself — it’s the experience of being waited on in your own home. Best of all, there’s no washing up at the end of the evening. That’s got to be worth every penny.” - Daily Mail

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