Why I Show My Prices When Most Private Chefs Don't
Try to find the price on a private chef's website.
You can't.
Most of the time, there isn't one to find. What you'll get instead is a contact form, a "request a quote" button, and a lot of beautiful photos with no numbers attached.
To be fair, a few chefs do show their prices — and the more this catches on, the more will follow. But right now, keeping prices hidden is the industry standard.
I'm going to change that.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's just how things are done. But for the person trying to book dinner, it turns one simple question — what does this cost? — into a guessing game.
The Guessing Game
Here's how it usually goes. You find a chef whose food looks great. You fill out the form. You wait a day or two. Maybe you get on a phone call. And finally, after all of that, you hear a number — and it's double what you were hoping for. Or you never hear back at all.
Either way, you've spent real time and energy just to learn one basic fact: what does this cost?
Nobody's doing anything wrong. But nobody's winning either.
Why Most Chefs Do It This Way
The biggest reason is also the simplest: it's what everyone does.
When every private chef hides their prices, hiding yours doesn't feel like a decision. It just feels like how it's done.
There are other reasons too:
every dinner is custom, so a fixed number can feel misleading
nobody wants sticker shock before the value is understood
prices genuinely shift with ingredients, seasons, and group size
All fair points. But they all leave the person trying to book in the same place: guessing.
Nobody questions it, so nothing changes. I'm questioning it.
Why I Do It Differently
I know what it's like to look at other chefs' sites and feel confused. So I built mine to be the opposite.
Too many chefs and business owners build everything without thinking about how it looks through a customer's eyes. I built mine the other way around — every part thought out from your side of the table. From the second you land on my website, to the printed menu at your seat, to the to-go gift I leave with every dinner.
I've built this entire thing on transparency and making it as easy as possible to book me. The work is on me so the ease is on you — like a relaxing stay where everything is taken care of and there's nothing you need to figure out.
That's why there are so many menus and so many experiences on the site. No one experience is right for every party, so I laid them all out — what it is, what you get, and what it costs. Find the one that fits your night.
The Pricing Is the Easy Part
And honestly, the pricing is the easiest part of it. It'll go up with time. That's because I know my numbers. My background is in restaurant management — breaking down costs, understanding margins, building pricing from real data instead of guessing. I price out every experience ingredient by ingredient, so the number on the website isn't a guess. When pricing is built that way, publishing it isn't a risk.
People don't book me because my prices are low — they book me because the prices are transparent, the food is amazing, and everything in the experience is thought through.
And it works. The calendar keeps filling up — not because I'm the cheapest private chef in San Diego, but because people know exactly what they're getting before they ever reach out.
The Price Tells You What You're Eating
Here's what most people miss: showing prices doesn't just take the mystery out of the cost. It takes the mystery out of what you're actually having.
You can look at my site and see a menu at $85 a person and think — that's cheap for a private chef. Why? Five courses, chicken as the main. Then you see the one at $150 — steak, salmon, more courses, a bigger progression. The price tells the story of the food. You don't have to ask. You can see it.
You Can Do the Math Yourself
And once the prices are out in the open, you can do your own math.
If the chicken dinner is $85 and the steak dinner is $150, you can figure out that upgrading to steak probably costs less than $150. If you see a New York strip on a $150 menu, you can guess that stepping up to a filet is maybe ten dollars more — and that feels reasonable.
The same goes for fully custom menus — a lot of people go that route. The published menus aren't just food ideas. They're price ideas. You can look at a menu with steak and salmon for $150 and think: a custom menu with steak and fish will probably run about $150. Okay, let's do it.
You're not starting from zero. You're starting from something real.
Compare that to the usual way: you tell a chef what you want with no frame of reference, and then a giant bill shows up. That's not a fun surprise for anyone.
No forms to get a number.
No waiting for a reply.
No guessing — about the price or the food.
What "Starting At" Actually Means
My prices are starting points, and I'm upfront about that. Customization moves the number — more courses, premium ingredients, a larger group, a more elaborate evening.
But the range is real. The number you see is where the experience begins, not a teaser designed to get you on the phone.
What If Other Chefs Copy My Prices?
It's the question I get most from other chefs. If your prices are public, anyone can undercut you.
They already do. There are people selling food for less than me right now. My prices might be low in private chef terms, but if someone wants cheaper, cheaper exists.
People don't book me to save money. They book me because of everything I put into this business and their experience. The costing, the structure, the menus, the pacing, the cleanup, the to-go gift — all of it.
A price on a website is the easiest thing in the world to copy. What's behind it isn't. So if you'd like to replicate everything I do, go ahead.
It'll take a while.
I'd rather lead than hide.
The Whole Thing, Before You Ever Book
Think about the printed menus I place at every table. When guests see the structure of the entire night before it begins, the experience shifts. It goes from:
"I wonder what this costs and what I'd actually get"
to
"I can see the whole thing — the menu, the night, the price."
The website does the same thing before you ever book. By the time we talk, the numbers are settled and the menu is clear, so we get to skip straight to the fun part — what kind of night you want to have.
The Experience Starts Before the First Course
I always say the dinner begins the moment I walk into your home. But really, it begins earlier — the moment you start wondering whether to book.
That's what all of this is really about. Not just the prices. The menus, the process laid out step by step, the FAQs, these posts — it's all the same idea.
No guessing. No mystery. No confusion.
Just a clear picture of your night, before you've spent a dollar or filled out a single form.
I'd rather that moment feel clear than mysterious. Clarity is part of the experience — it always was.
Book a Private Chef Experience in San Diego
I offer private dining experiences across San Diego, including La Jolla, Coronado, Del Mar, and surrounding coastal areas. Every experience lists its pricing upfront, because that's how the whole evening works: structured, intentional, and clear from the start.
Christopher Prael