Please enjoy $100 off gatherings of 12 people or more. Discount automatically applied. 

Gatherings

Meal Prep

A Season or Long Term

Cooking Classes

Chef Services Overview

, though many Culinista® chefs are happy to travel. For services outside of these areas, 

The Culinistas is a resource that gives everyone the freedom and confidence to connect around a meal.

Our optional drinks service includes up to 2 drinks plus waitstaff who will arrive 1 hour before guests and provide 4 hours of service. Additional time will be billed at $60/hour. The Culinistas will provide ice and non-alcoholic ingredients. The host is responsible for providing alcohol.

Dairy

Eggs

Fish

Peanuts

Shellfish

Nuts

Gluten

Pork

Sesame

Beef

Alliums

You bring the jazzy playlist. We’ll handle the rest.

This Steakhouse Menu Brings the Sizzle Home 

 and everything is set: the menu, the decor, and the guest list. But, what about dessert? For some, dessert is an afterthought, while others believe in saving the best for last. We believe that it doesn’t have to be sugary, but something to close the meal marks a gathering as special.

How do you pick the right dessert to end your night? Understanding how to pair dessert with the rest of a meal is a skill—but it’s easy to master with a few guidelines in mind. Read on to learn about the five factors to consider when choosing the ideal dessert, so you never have to stress about the final course.

Learn how to make dessert the star of the show at a 

Single Origin

When dishes come from the same culinary traditions, they often share common ingredients, flavor profiles, and cooking techniques. This throughline creates a balanced meal in which each dish complements the others. For example, if you’re serving a French Chicken Paillard as your main course, return to another regional classic for dessert, like our Apricot Tarte Tatin, which showcases all the elegance of French cuisine. Both have a rich undertone, but the Tarte Tatin’s mild flavor profile balances the chicken’s acidity.

Balance

If the main meal is hearty or rich like a meaty stew or creamy pasta, a lighter dessert may be the right choice. If serving a lighter meal like our Za’atar Dusted Salmon with Cucumber Salad, you’ll have room for our creamy, decadent Burnt Basque Cheesecake. Aim for your guests to feel satisfied when they leave and refreshed and healthy when they wake up the next day.

Flavor Throughlines

Citrus, spices, and herbs make for great throughlines to a meal because they play well with dishes that are both savory and sweet. If your meal features citrus in the form of a salad dressing or marinade, tie a bow on it with a similarly bright dessert. If your meal includes warm or spicy flavors like our Spiced Lamb with Couscous, look to a dessert with adjacent flavors like our fluffy Coconut Chai Cake, made with plenty of cinnamon and nutmeg. The complementary spices are a reminder of the deliciousness you just enjoyed, and a satisfying close to the night.

Kitchen Efficiency

Think like a chef. Whenever they can, chefs create menus with kitchen efficiency in mind; so, if the main dish is a hearty braise that requires the oven to be at a low temperature for a long period of time, accompaniments that use the stovetop or no cooking at all will prevent traffic jams at the range. This technique can be applied in many ways: Pavlova in an oven that can’t be opened? Plan to use the grill for dinner. Two different types of roasted root veggies as sides? Whipped cream and berries for dessert. Another great kitchen efficiency technique is planning a dessert that can be made ahead. Trifle-style desserts, like our Raspberry Tiramisu, is one of these, or cookies, whose dough can be made up to a week before and then portioned in advance, so that you can pop a baking sheet in the oven for 8-10 minutes, then produce a plate of cookies as if by magic.

Sustainability

Chefs are always thinking of ways to use entire ingredients root to flower, rind to seed, or to reuse ingredients that would otherwise be discarded. Even better, they choose dishes because of ingredients from other dishes that they know will need to be used up. Our Vegetable Aioli, for example, uses egg yolks. Avoid waste by whipping the leftover whites into a Flourless Chocolate Cake. Or make use of the whole orange and fold its zest into a Burnt Basque Cheesecake.

Learn the keys to desserts that wow with 

Consider these five factors, and you’ll never stress about the last course. 

How to Pick the Perfect Dinner Party Dessert

Those first few weeks with a new baby are a blur, but nutrition need not be a blindspot. Whether you’re recovering from labor or supporting a partner who is, we’ve got dishes that can feed you and the whole family. Nutrient-packed to help heal and rebuild on a cellular level, they’re replete with easily digestible greens, energizing proteins, and healthy fats. Make them ahead and freeze before the baby comes, or let a Culinista chef make them as part of our 

, because everyone benefits from a bit of mothering.

High Protein

Turkey Meatballs with Roasted Carrot Sauce

Turkey and quinoa make these meatballs protein-rich, while dried apricots bring a welcome touch of sweetness. We serve them over a big spoonful of roasted carrot sauce, which is high in Vitamin A, an important vitamin to support the immune system.

Oats

Acclimate to your every-three-hours wake-up routine by adding a cozy, ready-to-eat bowl of oatmeal. Rolled oats get simmered in coconut milk for an ultra creamy porridge that becomes aromatic with warm spices of ginger, cardamom, allspice, and sumac. The addition of any fruit works here, but we opt for roasted pears gone jammy and sweet from cooking. The magic happens overnight, as the flavors meld together to sing in the morning. Nourishing, easily digestible, and spiced-just-right, these oats help replenish iron and promote milk production.

Ready to Eat

Simple and energizing ingredients come together in more ways than one to yield this balanced and protein-rich dish. These quinoa-crusted patties take inspiration from falafel, but are composed of mashed chickpeas and dill. They rest upon a bed of bursting tomatoes, quinoa, and punchy arugula, before getting dressed with a green sauce that uses up the leftover arugula and dill. Employing each ingredient in more than one way is efficient and leaves no space for missed flavor or nourishment, delivering a vegan meal that will satiate and energize.

Freeze for Later

Soup for the soul doesn’t necessarily need chicken. The broth takes its flavor from a Sustainable Simmer, employing onion skins, collard green trimmings, and toasted spices. You’ll find sweet potatoes swimming in the broth, swirled with wilted collard greens and savory bites of chewy wheatberries for a minestrone-like finish. Eat now or freeze for the future; it will soothe with every spoonful and sip, warming you through and through, whenever you decide to heat it up.

Bite Sized

Whoever said chicken nuggets were just for kids didn’t know a Culinista. These quinoa-crusted chicken and sweet potato nuggets include no indecipherable ingredients and get oven-baked, not fried, until golden and crisp. A bright ranch dressing with a base of tart Greek yogurt threaded with dill and lemon zest delivers a nugget without the drive-through stomach ache.

Family Comfort Foods

Speaking of childhood favorites, our mac and cheese incorporates tenderly cooked cauliflower into a creamy, cheesy sauce for a hidden veggie that is so soft-spoken you might just miss it. We did that on purpose. This revamped classic will satisfy your most elementary of cravings with a crunchy breadcrumb topping, too.

Clean & Nourishing

This cobb-style salad exemplifies the mantra “eat the rainbow.” Neat rows of forkable bites contain roasted sweet potatoes and golden beets, poached salmon, red kale, toasted pepitas, and a tarragon vinaigrette to make it hearty and filling. It’s a full meal for when you need all the elements in one bowl.

 with The Culinistas to try these and more from our culinary library of 600+ dishes.

7 Postpartum-Friendly Dishes For Your Fourth Trimester

Stop refreshing your reservation app and kickstart your day from the comfort of home with these cozy menus. We’re playing the hits with fluffy ricotta pancakes, veggie-laden frittatas, granola butter for your toast, and a Calabrian egg salad. Round up your sleepy-eyed friends or make it a family affair: we think these spreads will please any crowd. What’s better? Only waking up to a 

. Two hour wait time—we don’t do that anymore.

Set your Alarm for these 8 Brunch Menus 

Yes, you should be having fun at your own party.

The Culinistas’ Ultimate Guide to Hosting

No place at the table for gluten? These menus are up for the challenge.

We are tired of gluten-free meals that fall flat. These menus reset the bar, relying on aromatics, spice combos, and creative substitutions so they don’t need gluten to stand on their own. Creamy dips and colorful crudités steal the show; herb-laden dressings take grain bowls to new heights, and desserts use alt flours to enhance textures. Try your hand or 

, but either way, you’re in the clear to invite your pickiest eaters and pasta-loving friends.

10 Gluten Free Menus That Everyone at the Table Will Love

Pick your next trip or reminisce about your most recent one with these menus. An expanded palate is a way to expand the mind so we collaborated with chefs whose regional expertise guided each dish. Unique ingredients, flavor combinations, and methods make themselves at home when cooked from your own kitchen, either by you or 

This is placeholder DEK copy for a menu listicle hero card.

10 Menus for Traveling the Globe Without Leaving Your Kitchen

Paella is one of those dishes that brings people together. Because of its large format and flexible ingredient list, the traditional Spanish dish is synonymous with communal celebration. And even though paella is an extravagant-looking dish, it is possible to conquer in your home kitchen with the right plan and ingredients. Here’s how to make paella your next reason to come together.

To learn the keys to homemade paella directly from a Culinista chef, 

The Pan

 is large, shallow, and made of very thin metal, which allows rice to cook evenly and form a crust—known as socarrat—on the bottom. Paella pans function as both cooking and serving vessels, so the two handles on either side help it get to the table.

If you don’t have a paella pan, your largest 

 will work, but your socarrat will likely take longer to cook and may not be as crispy. Whichever pan you choose, it should be big enough to hold all of the ingredients and have enough surface area for them to spread across one layer.

Type of Rice

The most common rice for making paella is bomba rice. Bomba is the MVP of paella rice because it is a short grain with a high starch content, allowing it to absorb a significant amount of liquid while maintaining its structure. This characteristic helps the rice to cook evenly and release its starch, creating a creamy texture and forming a crispy and flavorful socarrat at the bottom of the pan. Socarrat is a delicacy, prized for its crispy texture and nutty flavor. It is formed by evenly cooking rice at a high heat and creating a layer of caramelized rice at the bottom of the pan. If Bomba rice is unavailable, you can use other short-grain rice such as Arborio or Calasparra, though the resulting texture may be slightly different.

Ingredients

There are many different types of paella. If you’re hosting a 

 with The Culinistas, you can choose from our Classic Paella, Crispy Chicken & Olive Paella, Green Vegetarian Paella with kale, poblano and mushroom, or Lobster Paella with pancetta and snap peas. Here, we’ll cover how to make a classic paella.

Saffron

Garlic and Onion

Tomato

Chorizo

Seafood

Essential Ingredients:

Green Peas

Roasted Bell Pepper

Smoked Paprika

Optional Ingredients:

Step By Step

Make a broth

Start the rice

Add broth to rice and cook

Add seafood

Serve in the pan

Don’t be intimidated: this Spanish classic can be conquered at home, even without a paella pan.

How to Make Paella at Home

, but you don’t know what to cook. Our menus go beyond the classics (though there’s nothing wrong with a roast chicken, and we’ve got a menu for that). Our goal is to make a gathering memorable by making the intangible element of delicious food completely tangible. We choose food by season, region, or culture to create a cohesive menu. We know how to balance flavors as well as the pacing of the night through the dishes we select and the dining format that we suggest. Get adventurous yourself, or 

 one of these lineups. Either way, these spreads are destined to impress and leave you and your guests dreaming of one more bite.

10 Totally Unique Dinner Party Menus

You’ll be slinging pies like a pizzaiolo in no time.

How to Make Pizza in the Oven

There are plenty of ways to cook a steak, but there’s only one way we swear by for most cuts, and that’s pan-searing. Grill-heads, we hear you, but think of all the drippings lost through fiery grates. Cooking steak in a pan ensures all that jus stays where it needs to be: with the steak. Drippings secured, pan-searing allows the steak’s entire surface to touch direct heat, leading to a fully caramelized (read: delicious) crust on all sides.

To learn the keys directly from a Culinista chef, 

The Equation for Success

Below, you’ll learn all the keys to searing success: which cuts of meat work best, other ingredients needed, internal cooking temperatures, equipment, and step-by-step cooking instructions.

Cuts of Meat

Just about any cut of beef branded “steak” can be pan-seared (stay away from other cuts like chuck roast, beef shanks, or brisket, whose tougher meat requires a long, low braise). That said, if you’re using a steak thicker than two inches, it’ll need a short time in the oven after searing. Cuts thinner than two inches will cook through just fine on the stovetop. Here are some of our favorite steaks:

Ribeye

New York Strip

Filet Mignon

Sirloin

Chef Tip

Internal Temperatures

Steak will continue to cook after it is off the heat, so it's best to remove it from the pan when it’s a few degrees under the desired temperature. We highly recommend using a 

 when cooking steak because it’s the only way to accurately gauge the level of doneness.

Steak

Salt

Butter

Garlic

Hard Stem Herbs

Type of Pan

Flavor Boosting Ingredients:

Season the steak

Temper the steak

Preheat the oven

Heat the oil

Sear the steak

Add the butter & herbs

Transfer to the oven

Rest the steak

Chef's Tip

Caramelized, juicy, and perfectly tender every time

How to Sear Steak Like a Chef

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, mangiamo!

Having an Italian Dinner Party? Here's What to Serve.

Menu Ideas

How Tos & Inspiration

Gail Simmons

Top Chef

Dana Cowin

Food & Wine

Gwyneth Paltrow

Goop

Serving Platters & Bowls, corresponding to number of dishes and accompaniments.

Remember small dishes for sauces, dips, and spreads.

Serving Utensils, corresponding to number of dishes.

Remember small utensils for sauces, dips, and spreads.

Tablewares (Tablecloth, Placemats, Napkins)

Dishware (Salad Plates, Dinner Plates, Dessert Plates), corresponding to number of guests and courses.

Flatware, corresponding to number of guests and courses.

Grain-based salads are best if eaten at room temperature, but are also wonderful hot or cold

Meat dishes are prepared medium-rare, poultry dishes are fully cooked through, with sauce on the side

Oven: Transfer meat/poultry/fish and sauce in a covered oven-safe containers or wrapped in aluminum foil @ 375°F for 5-15 minutes depending on desired temperature and doneness

Stove: Reheat sauce over low heat, stirring every 30 seconds until heated to your desired temperature; pour over room temperature meat/poultry/fish

Pasta dishes are prepared al dente and soften in their sauces over time

Pasta dishes are best at room temperature or cold

Stove: Heat in pan over medium heat, adding water as needed so the sauce doesn’t reduce

Microwave: Partially cover the vessel and stir every 30 seconds

Cleaned base greens and salad accoutrements will be packaged separately; toss together in a medium to large bowl and add dressing to taste

Allow sauces, dressings, and vinaigrettes to come to room temperature so they can loosen

Cookies, brownies, bars & scones best eaten at room temperature

Muffins & load breads are best eaten at room temperature or reheated slightly

Slice, spread with butter or coconut oil, and toast butter side down on skillet over medium heat until golden brown

Fruit salads best eaten cold or at room temperature

Glassware (Wine, Cocktail, Rocks, Flutes, etc.)

Hearty vegetable salads are best if eaten at room temperature, but are also wonderful hot or cold

Oven: Transfer into a heatproof vessel @ 350°F until warmed through (5-10 minutes)

Our favorite full set of baking sheets & pans: 

All-Clad Pro-Release Nonstick Bakeware Set

 OXO Good Grips 2-Piece Plastic Cutting Board Set

OXO Good Grips 15-Piece Everyday Kitchen Utensil Set

Make sure the size you order fits in your oven!

All-Clad HA1 Hard Anodized Nonstick Cookware Set

Stove Top: Reheat over low heat, stirring every 30 seconds until heated to your desired temperature (4-8 minutes)

Reheating Guide

Equipment

Before your service, please read these helpful tips:

Empty the dishwasher and clear out the sink before the chef arrives.

Make sure you have olive oil, salt, pepper, tin foil & parchment paper for cooking. Plus, soaps, dish rags, trash bags, and a broom for clean up.

Double check our equipment list below, and make sure your kitchen is stocked.

Confirm that stove burners, oven, broiler, and dishwasher work; if something doesn't work, please let us know in advance.

Make sure someone is home to let in the chef at their scheduled time of arrival or that kitchen is accessible without guidance.

Familiarize your chef with the home (shoe policy, smoke alarms, pets, trash, recycling, wash rooms, etc.)

Leave fridge space for groceries, dishes and/or leftovers.

Communicate with your chef about children and furry friends' kitchen rules.

If your service was exceptional and you'd like to tip above the included 20% gratuity, please do so in cash.

Friendly Reminder for Weekly Meal Prep: Your chef(s) are there to cook for you, not set the table or serve you. 

Seaside Ceviche

To Start

Shishito Pepper Skewer

Spicy Guacamole with Corn Chips & Crudités

Family Style

Esquites

White Fish & Squash Ceviche

Scallop & Cucumber Aguachile

Fish Tacos

Tequila Shrimp Salad

Dessert

Chocolate Torte with Ice Cream

Seasonal Fruit

Drinks

Tequila Bar

Golden Hour Sangria

Hosting made easy with a Culinista chef.

Choose your Menu

Share the Details

Sit Back and Relax

Culinista chefs hail from top restaurants around the country. They help celebrate our culinary methods and approach to hospitality.

Party Like a Culinista

Our services also include chefs for weekly meal prep, cooking classes, and seasonal & long term needs.