A private chef for MetroWest and Worcester County

Based in Central Massachusetts. No travel fee from Boston to Worcester.

I cook in the stretch of Massachusetts between Boston and Worcester: the city and its suburbs, and the towns along Route 9, 495, and the Pike. Most of my dinners happen within a half hour of home, which is why there is no travel fee anywhere in this area and why I can usually say yes to a weeknight.

Where, exactly

MetroWest: Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Sudbury, Wayland, Lincoln, Weston, Dover, Sherborn, Framingham, Hopkinton, Holliston, Southborough, Medfield, Westwood, Needham, Concord, Carlisle, Acton, Lexington, Belmont, Winchester. Worcester County: Worcester, Shrewsbury, Grafton, Westborough, Northborough, Sutton, Upton, Mendon, Hopedale, Milford, Bolton, Harvard, Medway, Franklin. Greater Boston: Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, and Newton. No travel fee in any of them, or in the towns between. Farther afield with a travel fee: the North Shore, the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley, Cape Cod, Rhode Island, and coastal Connecticut. If your town is not listed, ask; I will tell you whether the drive works.

Dinners I have cooked around here this year

No names, but these are all real, from the current calendar:

  • Dover: a mother’s seventieth birthday for eight in April, plated. Four vegetarians, one pescatarian, three meat eaters, and the guest of honor allergic to garlic and onion, so the menu moved from Japanese to Mediterranean and everyone ate the same number of courses.
  • Newton: a Marathon Monday backyard barbecue for twenty-five: barbecue chicken (half of it spicy), veggie burgers, sliders and hot dogs for the kids.
  • Chestnut Hill and Beacon Hill: plated dinners for six and for four, the kind of city dinner party where the kitchen is small and the table is not.
  • Westborough: a sixth wedding anniversary for two in June. They wanted seafood, so we opened with a small raw bar and built the courses out from there.
  • Blackstone Valley: a fiftieth birthday for eight in June where the host’s only menu instruction was “you decide,” and a forty-fifth birthday for two in July (steak, lamb, scallops, pasta, and the dog in the kitchen).
  • Outside Worcester: a thirtieth birthday for two in Auburn, chef’s choice, a proper steak, a cake; and in Spencer, a couple who hired me to cook a thank-you dinner for their neighbors and then left for the evening so the neighbors had the house to themselves.
  • Shrewsbury and Northborough: most of these are eight to twelve around a dining table: a milestone birthday, a thank-you for good friends, the in-laws visiting.

Getting there

From my kitchen in Central Massachusetts, Worcester is about twenty-five minutes, Framingham and Natick about thirty, Wellesley and Newton about forty, Boston and Cambridge about an hour depending on the Pike. I arrive two to three hours before you want to sit down, so traffic is my problem, not yours, and I shop on the way so the groceries come in with me. For a weeknight dinner inside 495 I leave early and wait it out in your kitchen rather than risk being late.

What is on the menu around here

The menus follow the New England season: Hadley asparagus and the first strawberries in May, Wellfleet oysters and sweet corn in August, apples and cider in October, root vegetables, braises, and Vermont maple through the winter. The sample menus show a month at a time. Every menu is written for your table, around allergies and preferences, and vegetarian, gluten-free, and other versions of any course are always available.

How it works

Tell me the date, the headcount, and who is coming. I send pricing and a first draft of the menu, and we fine-tune it together. On the night I cook in your kitchen with my own equipment, serve each course when you are ready for it, and clean up. Family-style dinners are $100 per person and plated dinners $125, plus groceries at cost, with a $650 minimum. The cost guide has worked examples; private dinners has the details of the evening; for a wedding, reunion, or retreat, see events.

Kitchens around here

I have cooked four-course dinners in studio apartments and in lake cabins with one burner. I bring an induction burner and my own pans, so the kitchen rarely decides the menu. If yours is small or the oven is unreliable, note it on the inquiry form and I will write the menu around it.

Questions people ask

Do you charge a travel fee in MetroWest or Worcester County?

No. Everything from Cambridge to Worcester, including all of MetroWest, is inside my no-fee area.

Do you cook in Worcester itself?

Yes, across the city and the towns around it, Shrewsbury to Auburn to Holden, with no travel fee.

Do you cook in Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Sudbury, Wayland, and Lincoln?

Yes, all of them, with no travel fee. They are thirty to forty minutes from my kitchen.

What about Boston and Cambridge?

Also no travel fee. Boston, Cambridge, Brookline, Newton, Belmont, Lexington, and Winchester are all inside the regular area.