Guides
Signature dinners: food in the band. Stay Chef: groceries at cost.
The direct answer depends on format. Signature private chef dinners include food and grocery procurement inside the published per-guest band. Multi-day Stay Chef bills the daily chef fee plus groceries at true cost with merchant receipts. There is no grocery markup anywhere in the network.
Signature dinners — inside the band
For Private Chef Dinner and other per-guest signature bands, the published rate covers chef time, menu design, shopping, and the food itself inside the chosen tier. You do not see a separate “+ groceries at cost” line on those formats.
Stay Chef — at cost with receipts
Island groceries run 31–53% above mainland prices, and a week of shopping for a villa varies by thousands. Stay Chef therefore bills groceries at cost with original receipts — honesty at scale, not a padded estimate.
Where your chef shops
Island-first: Maui teams buy from Maui farmers and fishers first; Kauaʻi menus lean on Hanalei’s market and Kunana Dairy; Big Island menus on Kona coffee country, Parker Ranch, and Hāmākua producers. What the islands don’t grow, Costco and the Honolulu purveyors fill in.
Keep reading
- guide Private chef vs. restaurant: the real arithmetic.
- guide Private chef, personal chef: the difference is the day.
- guide A fixed written quote vs. a bid queue.
- guide Read before you book.
- guide How a private chef works, in four steps.
- guide Hiring a private chef in Hawaiʻi, without the runaround.
- guide Which island is yours?
- guide What your kitchen needs — less than you think.
Get a written quote
The button is not “Book now.” You tell us the table; we send a written quote — and that quote is the confirmed total.