Even though the Holidays have passed, most of us find we are constantly entertaining for guests and out-of-towners through the New Year. By now most of us are so sick of cooking and cleaning that we want to throw in the towel and just meet friends at a restaurant. So imagine the option of hosting at home with a stunning meal prepared by a chef with no cooking or cleaning… sounds too good to be true {or too expensive}… well get excited because you can in fact have it all {at take-out pricing!} with KitchenSurfing.

It all started a few weeks ago {yes, I got lazy even before the Holidays began} when I started planning a dinner party for seven people for my husband’s 30th birthday. His parents were coming to town and we were going out to dinner several nights so I wanted to break up all of the eating out with a nice meal in. The idea of setting the table sounded easy, the idea of cooking for a group of seven sounded daunting and quite frankly exhausting. I set out to find an easy catering solution online and actually came across KitchenSurfing in my search.

Kitchen Surfing essentially is an online service where you book a local cook to come and prepare a meal in your home {kind of like a personal chef}. When you get on the website, you start by selecting how much you want to spend a head from $25, to $50, and up. The $25 options are two course including an appetizer and entree, while the $50+ include three courses plus serving and clean up. When you log on to the site KitchenSurfing.com you choose your price range and then have a list of menus to choose from.

For our party I decided to go with Chef Omar Zerrei’s $50 per person meal entitled ‘Fall Flavors’. The menu included Heirloom Tomato Salad with Pan seared Goat Cheese, Pistachio Crusted Blue Fish served with Braised Brussels sprouts, Quinoa tabouleh made from Chick peas, black lentils, preserved lemon, garlic, parsley and whole grain mustard, and then one of the most incredible desserts I have ever tasted, Bourbon-berry French toast with lemon curd stuffing. My husband also loves steak so for an additional $75 he prepared fresh sliced Hanger Steak. {Everything was organic and the tomatoes were locally grown!}

When they say the chefs take care of everything to re-create a restaurant-level experience in the comfort of your own home so you can sit back and simply savor, they aren’t kidding. As soon as you book the chef you begin an email convo to ensure you are happy with the menu {ie. my husband doesn’t like cheese so he made sure he made him a different variation of the salad}. Then from the time the chef arrived he never so much as asked where a mixing bowl was, he got right to work in my kitchen. And come dinner time the food was piping hot, and all I had todo was pour the wine! It was the most relaxing dinner party experience I have hosted to date!

KitchenSurfing offers dinners from week night dinner menus to premium dinner parties. Then for the the holidays Kitchen Surfing offers both a seated dinner party option {multi-course meals for 6-12 guests at $100 per persom} and a passed cocktail party {hors d’oeurves for 15-30 guests at $40 per person}. Staying in for NYE? They still have Chefs available to book!!

KitchenSurfing just started offering same-day dinners too {see menus here}. For $25 per person, and parties of 2-6 people, your personal chef cooks your fresh dinner and cleans up, all in about 30 minutes. It’s a great option for a busy weeknight dinner for couples and families who want a healthy, fresh and convenient meal {I am thinking this may be my new replacement to ordering in}.

KitchenSurfing is currently available in Boston, Chicago, Hamptons, LA, New york, Seattle, and DC.

A special thanks to KitchenSurfing for sponsoring this post.