Rude Personal Chef Experience

[larry_stewart]

My Brother runs an annual charity event to raise money for a good cause. At the end of the event, they auction off certain items or experiences donated to the charity to help raise money. One of the items was a local 'Celebrity Chef' would come to your house and prepare a meal for a certain amount of people. My sister in-law wound of winning this item. She invited a few family and friends to the experience in her home. When the Chef arrived, he criticized her kitchen, knives , cutting board ..... While he was cooking the meal, he dipped his finger in the food to taste it, and never washed his hands in between finger dips. When he was finished, he left the cooking surfaces, stove top and oven a mess. One of the dishes broke in the oven ( while it was filled with whatever he was cooking, and made no effort to even help her clean it up).

I was not at this dinner, just heard about it yesterday. I just can't believe how rude and arrogant this guy was. The whole point of him donating his services to be auctioned off for the charity is a two fold. One, to help the charity raise money. And second, in a symbiotic way, to help his business and services get recognized. Basically a marketing tool. Not sure what the guy was thinking, but I would have thrown his arrogant A$$ out of his house, and told him where he could put my knives that the didn't like.

Just venting

 

[medtran49]

Me too.

 

[blissful]

What a disrespectful, dangerous, and ignorant person.
I'm sure I would have walked him to the door. Sheesh!

 

[Aunt Bea]

I would have cut my losses and ordered a pizza.

Next year skip the chef and bid on the dishwasher.

 

[Jade Emperor]

That’s very poor form
I used to do exactly these kind of events many times.
There was always myself and one my better FOH crew. We brought everything that we needed so as to minimise risks that could arise from using the client’s equipment.
What chef is not going to bring their own knives, for example?
Funnily enough, on some of these occasions we left the guest’s kitchen cleaner than we found it!
The very disappointing aspect here is that, as a charity “item”, the chef is representing the charity and also himself and his business as a marketing tool.
Were it me, I would be supplying feedback to the charity to ensure that this chef doesn’t sully the reputation of the organisation.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

+1 @Jade Emperor
I sure hope that your Brother @larry_stewart gave this person feed back and never invites him back to auction his service.
I hate to say that if I were your SIL, I would also call this "Celebrity Chef" out on your local social media platforms, ie NextDoor, etc.
Again, I agree with @Jade Emperor that any professional chef, so this guy calls himself, would always bring everything that they would have needed to provide the recipient with their private event as paid for. I mean come on man, what professional chef relies on the host to provide them with ANYTHING other than the venue?
I call rip-off!!

 

[Jade Emperor]

I remember doing one of these whereby the winner of the auction had paid $2500 for 10 guests.
The GM of the hotel at the time (who was a dick) insisted that I write my menu based on how much $$$ had been raised by my auction.
I told him that he was missing the entire point and that, at $250 per head, we were going swimmingly.
But he insisted that it was all costed out just as we would for a paying function. I felt that it was a marketing opportunity and that we should be respectful of what the winning host would expect. (And $250 per head is not a cheap ticket)
Moving ahead by a year, and this time the event went for $4000 for 15 people. But by now, there was a new, very savvy GM and she wanted me to go all bells and whistles! She even added a bottle of Cristal from her own personal cellar as a host gift.
Needless to say, I really respected that GM

 

[pictonguy]

That's too bad Larry. I suspect this "celebrity chef" was not very experienced. Personally I would never cater an event without getting together with the host in their event space not only to discuss the menu, preferences and potential allergies of their guests also not before instructions from me on what I expected of them before that first meeting. Also this allowed me to scope out their facilities and make sure it was going to work properly for any menu I was going to prepare. And like JE mentioned, what chef doesn't bring their own equipment and knives, nobody I know. Catering isn't something a chef takes lightly believe me, because what can go wrong, will go wrong, there's absolutely no doubt about that. I simply couldn't work any other way and for a chef to allow themselves to get into the situation that this chef did, just tells me they're quite inept. This is all pretty basic stuff, but I suspect your brother will learn from what happened.

 

[dragnlaw]

I totally agree with all been said before, plus I also suspect this socalled pumped up 'line cook' thought perhaps he'd win instant fame as a rising Gordon Ramsey.... failed!!!

 

[larry_stewart]

I wish I knew more of the details. I heard it 2nd hand, from my wife who heard it first hand from my sister in-law. Sometimes I do question what my sister in-law says and her reading of a situation. But two other people ( who were there ) basically confirmed the same thing. Therefore, I have no doubt that what they said was both fact and accurate. I don't know what food was cooked ( I wish I did) nor any other details. If hit it is brought up again, I may try to get more out of her, butt I personally don't want to bring up the topic, as it obviously wasn't something they'd like to remember. Aside from anything else, I would have to assume that cleaning up after yourself and not sticking your fingers in the food is standard proper professional kitchen etiquette. I can only imagine what goes on at his restaurant . Jackass! He turns what could have been such a positive, rewarding experience into a negative one. At least the charity got its money. Honestly, Im glad it happened to my sister in-law, who co runs the charity , rather than one of the other guests at the event. That could have had more of a negative impact. Im curious to see if they learned their lesson, and don't seek his services this year.