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SkillPatron.com – The online marketplace for outsourcing services in Africa was founded and funded by British-born Nigerian tech entrepreneur Jake Adebayo.
SkillPatron is introducing a personal private chef for hire service for homes, restaurants, in Lagos, Abuja & Port-harcourt. The service, now available to SkillPatron members, is an expansion of the existing Personal Chef for Hire service, originally aimed at new mothers; yet as of today, SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service works with a wide range of business clients mainly in the food service, hotel, retail, logistics, warehouse, and experiential marketing spaces.
In Nigeria the idea of having a private chef in Lagos, Abuja or Port-harcourt might seem like one that’s limited to the elites and old money upper class families, but a new food and technology service from SkillPatron is aiming to change that. SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service vets everyone from credentialed culinary professionals with years of restaurant experience to self-taught cooks. Once they pass the culinary assessment, chefs are given access to an exclusive clientele full of hungry foodies looking for a personal dining experience.
SkillPatron soft-launched it’s personal chef services in January of last year, and has been taking bookings in Lagos, Abuja and Port-harcourt ever since. Eventually, they hope to offer private chef for hire services in every major city in Africa.
At inception Jake Adebayo & Chef Tony wanted to create an outlet for private chefs to access clients interested in a unique, personal and slightly indulgent dining experience, and did so by melding their backgrounds in both technology and restaurants respectively.
The result? A personal and private chef for hire service that not only helps hungry food lovers who are willing to pay for authentic cuisine connect with talented chefs, but also serves those with a passion for cooking.
As an example Yetunde Buhari, an advertising professional who gave up her career to learn the art of Asian cooking. Yetunde didn’t go to culinary school, and cooking for a living was just a pipe dream until she started working with SkillPatron’s private chef for hire service. Because she is skilled in the kitchen, she’s now able to make money doing the work she loves even though she didn’t have previous professional experience.
You can think of SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service as a Couchsurfing.org or Airbnb for foodies. To book a chef, fill out some basic information on the SkillPatron site: your location, expected cooking date for culinary assessment, range of meal preferences, number of guests and price range. The site will then generate a list of chefs, their availability and their menus for you to choose from. The final step: Enjoy a tasty meal cooked in your own home (or office — or whatever locale you choose) while you entertain your friends. The bill for SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service bookings includes the tip, ingredients and clean-up, and prices range widely depending on the type of meal, the chef and intricacy of the menu you choose.
For example, a three-course date night cooking class and meal for two can cost around N30,000, while a brunch for 10 can total as low as N98500. So while it’s not necessarily a cheaper option than eating out, the price is comparable while you eat in the comfort of your own home.
SkillPatron currently tries out the chefs’ fare before they’re allowed to book clients on using our site, but as the business grows, it’ll have to hand off some of the vetting to a more seamless procedure.
SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service is moving towards more of a peer review system for chefs, but still does a weekly lunch at SkillPatron’s Ikoyi, Lagos office where five to eight chefs show up, make something delicious, and then sit down to share it with the other chefs and the SkillPatron team. At the moment SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service has put hundreds of chefs online, but mentions it has a backlog of thousands of chefs.
For SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service of course, it’s not just about the meals but also about creating a unique shared experience. SkillPatron’s personal & private chef for hire service isn’t just for engaging chefs for private homes as on the the busiest nights, a typical restaurant can’t afford to even lose a dishwasher to getting sick or not being around — or simply ghosting on the company — and end up frustrating the whole experience for the rest of the staff and restaurant goers.
