Toronto · the 905 · Muskoka
The Six BurnersA Toronto dispatch on hiring a private chef, with the cheque on the page.
Dispatch · dinners at home in the Six
What the evening costs, who is actually cooking it, and how a plated dinner ends up on your own table — read off fifty-one published menus and 436 notes left by the people who hosted them.
Straight to the figure
Fifty-one cards are published by the five kitchens on this page, and the median asks C$198 a head. The floor is C$154, which buys three courses for a table of six; the ceiling is C$277, a five-course tasting built on wagyu or lobster, and one tomahawk showpiece has gone out at C$280. That figure is a complete one rather than a deposit — the menu design, the shopping, the hours worked, the waiting on your table and the state of the counters at midnight all sit inside it, and none of these five carry a line for extras. The C$123 between the cheapest card and the dearest is most of the decision.
C$198median, per guest
51cards published
C$123floor to ceiling
436guest scores
The 5 kitchens on this register average 4.7 against a possible 5, weighed across 436 scores left by their guests.
The register
Yasuaki Chida is first because Toronto books him most. The order is volume, not price.
French classical, Japanese finish · Toronto
Menus open at C$175 a head, and 86 hosts have scored the cooking 4.68.
Trained in Tokyo, classically French, and behind more banquet passes than anyone else on this page. Chef Chida cooks Chilean sea bass, lobster risotto and tomahawk with the same unhurried precision, and his vegan menu is written with as much care as the wagyu one.
The full entryEuropean fine dining, West African accent · Toronto
Menus open at C$154 a head, and 84 hosts have scored the cooking 4.80.
Chef Manny apprenticed at the King Edward and went on to run kitchens at Chantrelle, the Metropolitan, Brunello and the Rosewood Bistro. He plates like the hotel chef he was: bone marrow and crab soup, beef two ways, bouillabaisse. The guest notes almost all close on the same detail, which is the state of the counters after he goes.
The full entryGlobal fine dining, dinner-party pricing · Toronto
Menus open at C$162 a head, and 201 hosts have scored the cooking 4.73.
Chef Salmon has the deepest review history on this page and the widest menu list: Italian, Mediterranean, an upscale barbecue, a vegan menu at C$165. He buys non-GMO, makes what he can from scratch, and puts ten to fifteen hours into a single service before he rings the bell.
The full entryYacht-galley fine dining · Toronto
Menus open at C$175 a head, and 39 hosts have scored the cooking 4.82.
Red Seal out of Vancouver, then Caribbean and Central American resorts, then fifteen years in yacht galleys cooking for whoever chartered the boat. Chef Andrew works fast, cleanly, and without needing direction — the phrase in his guest notes is that he simply handled it.
The full entryEast-meets-West fine dining · Toronto
Menus open at C$185 a head, and 26 hosts have scored the cooking 4.72.
George Brown, then several Toronto restaurants including a Michelin-starred one, and now personalised menus that put uni carbonara and yuzu béarnaise next to coq au vin blanc. Chef Sean plans hard, explains every plate as it lands, and works allergies into the menu rather than around it.
The full entryFrom the post
“Hired for my husband’s birthday. Chef Chida was wonderful — the food was excellent, he looked after the vegetarians in our small group without being asked twice, and we were completely stuffed by the end of it.”Sim J. of Toronto, on Yasuaki Chida, scored 4.5
“Booked for Mother’s Day lunch. The beef two ways was the best thing I have eaten in a long time — and he was on time, easy company, and left nothing behind him.”Andrew J. of Toronto, on Emmanuel Boakye, scored 4.8
“A birthday brunch for ten. He proposed a menu that matched what I had asked for almost exactly, and his communication in the run-up made sure the day ran without me having to think about it.”Kumbi M. of Toronto, on Christopher Salmon, scored 5.0
“Our children gave us the dinner as a gift, and what a gift it turned out to be. I felt like a guest in my own home. We will be doing it again.”Shirley R. of Ontario, on Andrew Siebert, scored 5.0
Four dispatches
Four, and the first one is the only one most people read.
Money
Three of the four questions Google prints under this search are about money, so it goes first. Between them these five kitchens publish fifty-one priced cards. Sorted low to high the middle one asks C$198 a head; the floor is C$154 and the ceiling C$277. Hold C$198 in your head and you will know immediately whether a quote is ordinary, cheap or ambitious.
The unit here is the guest, not the hour, and it changes what you are buying. A table still arguing at one in the morning is billed exactly like one that breaks up at ten, because the price was attached to a menu rather than to a shift. The rate card below is what the card carries with it — and anything pulled out of it and re-priced on its own is worth querying before the date is agreed.
| Band | A head | The card that sits there | Whose |
|---|---|---|---|
| The floor | C$154–C$180 | Italian, four courses, two guests upward | Emmanuel Boakye |
| Around the median | C$185–C$210 | East Meets West, four courses, two upward | Sean Wang |
| The ceiling | C$240–C$277 | A Feast to Share, wagyu or tomahawk, three upward | Yasuaki Chida |
The night
Condo galleys are no obstacle — two of these kitchens work in downtown one-bedrooms most weeks, and one has run a full plated service out of a building’s amenity room. Four burners that light and a metre of bench is the real requirement.
Your table
C$620–C$740
Three courses at the bottom of the band. Any of the five will take it; the smaller-table cards start at C$154 and C$162.
C$2,220–C$2,520
The four-course cards at C$185–C$210. Ask for boards to open — twelve people standing up need something to hold.
C$1,880–C$2,240
The top cards, C$235–C$280 a head, where the wagyu and the tomahawk live. This is the tier that reads as an occasion rather than a dinner.
None of these three sums carries a supplement for allergies or for cooking without meat — one of the five publishes an entirely vegan card at C$176, priced under most of its own list.
Distance
Downtown carries most of the work: the core, King West, Liberty Village, Yorkville, the Annex, Leslieville and the Distillery. East and west along the lake is routine, and so are the long dining tables of Rosedale, Forest Hill and Lawrence Park.
North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough are ordinary territory, and the 905 barely registers: Mississauga, Oakville, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham all turn up in the guest notes. Summer tilts the map north. Muskoka and Georgian Bay cottages, and the wine-country rentals around Niagara-on-the-Lake and Prince Edward County, take their long weekends months in advance — the one stretch of the calendar where two weeks of notice will not save you.
Correspondence
Of the 51 cards on this page, zero are sold by the week. Everything quoted here is an occasion: one date, one table, one invoice. The household version exists — several of these cooks do it — but it is billed by the visit, the food is portioned into your fridge rather than served, and none of these numbers apply to it. Ask for it in those words or you will be quoted a dinner.
Less than the card suggests. Out of every C$198 comes the food at Toronto grocery prices, the sous chef a table over ten requires, the knives and boxes and the drive, the insurance, and the ten to fifteen hours one of these chefs reckons goes into planning and sourcing one service. What is left is the wage. It is also why the cheapest quote in your inbox is worth reading twice rather than once.
By the card, not by the ranking. Read the five published menus, find the one you actually want to eat, check that its figure is a number you would sign, and write to that kitchen. Everything else — years in the trade, where somebody trained, whose average is 4.82 and whose is 4.68 — is tiebreaker material for when two cards are equally tempting.
Yes, though it is a different product and a different rate. You settle on a rotation of dishes and a standing day; the cook shops, works through several days of food in your kitchen, portions it and labels it. Billing is per visit, so nothing quoted on this site transfers across. Say so in your first message: an enquiry that opens with a birthday gets answered as a birthday.
Constantly. Notes for these kitchens arrive from Mississauga, Oakville, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham about as often as from the old city, and nothing extra appears on the invoice for crossing Steeles. Cottage country runs on its own clock: Muskoka and Georgian Bay houses, plus the rentals around Niagara-on-the-Lake and Prince Edward County, fill their summer and Thanksgiving weekends months out, and the drive there is priced case by case.
Here is the sum, for eight. A tasting menu on Ossington at C$145, four bottles at C$85, thirteen per cent tax and eighteen per cent on top: C$2,010, or C$251 a head. The same eight at home on a C$198 card: C$1,584, and the wine is whatever is already in the house. The gap widens with every extra guest and closes to nothing at a table of two.
By month: December is spoken for from roughly the second week of November. February clears its small tables about three weeks before the fourteenth. May and June lose their Saturdays to weddings. July and August are cottage season, which is arranged in the spring or not at all. Everything else in the year still has room a fortnight out — including, most years, the Saturday you assume is impossible.
The driving
Start in the 905, because that is the part hosts assume will cost extra and does not. Mississauga, Oakville, Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham turn up in the guest notes as often as anywhere, and crossing Steeles adds nothing to the invoice. The same goes for North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough.
Then the old city, which is where most of the work actually happens: condos in King West and Liberty Village, the long dining tables of Rosedale and Lawrence Park, lofts out east in Leslieville, and the Distillery for the evenings somebody wants brick in the photographs. Two of these five cook in condo party rooms often enough to have opinions about which buildings have a real stove. Come July the map tilts north to Muskoka and Georgian Bay, where a cottage weekend is arranged in spring or not at all.
