Private Chef & Dining at Your Villa in Umbria

The garden of an Umbrian villa at dusk, set up for the evening — Late June in the garden: the hour when the table starts being laid

A chef kneading and rolling fresh pasta by hand in a villa kitchen — Pasta rolled by hand in the afternoon, for dinner that evening

A chef who comes to you

This is not catering arriving with trays already plated. The chef comes to the villa in the afternoon, cooks in your kitchen and serves at your table.

We agree the menu beforehand, taking account of allergies, children, and how long you actually want to sit at the table: a six-course dinner and a barbecue in the garden are two different evenings, and they need organising differently.

A cook teaching how to roll out pasta during a cooking class — A cooking class: first the pasta sheet, then lunch

Learning, not just eating

The cooking class is what families and groups of friends ask for most often. You knead, you roll the sheet, you make the sauce — and then you sit down and eat what you made.

It takes an afternoon, it can happen at the villa or at the cook’s own kitchen, and it works well with children too: it tends to be the stillest two hours of their week.

A long table laid under the loggia of a villa, looking out over the hills — The loggia laid before the sun drops

The table matters as much as the plate

Laying for fourteen under the loggia, bringing out the right glasses, turning the lights on before it gets dark: these are the things that turn a dinner into an evening.

We set it all up in the afternoon while you are still out, and clear it afterwards. Nobody has to leave the table to go and load the dishwasher.

Pizzas baking inside a lit wood-fired oven — The oven lit a couple of hours ago: time for the pizzas

The wood oven and the embers

Almost every villa we look after has a wood-fired oven or a fireplace for grilling. Almost none of the guests know how to light one, and the first attempt usually fills the house with smoke.

We light it in the afternoon, bring the wood, and stay until the temperature is right. Then the evening is yours: pizza for everyone, or meat over the embers.

A stall of fresh fruit and vegetables in a covered Umbrian market — The fruit stall, on market morning

Shopping, in the right places

Fruit and vegetables at the market, bread from the baker, oil from the mill down the road, wine from the wineries around here. These are producers we work with all year, not a list found online.

We can do the shopping before you arrive and leave the fridge full, or take you to the market if shopping is part of the holiday — for a lot of people it is.