A full-time household chef
Someone on a salary, cooking for one household most days. Agencies place these roles and they run into tens of thousands a year. If that is what you are after, you want a placement agency rather than us.
Private chef visits · London
A Japanese private chef, in your own kitchen.
oishee sends a vetted Japanese chef to your London home. They arrive with the Japanese pantry, cook a week of real Japanese food on your own hob, portion it into your fridge and leave the kitchen clean. Not a restaurant meal delivered: the food someone grew up eating, made in front of you.
A visit is £100 to £170 for eight to twelve portions, travel included, and the price is published rather than quoted. One visit, or a pack of 4 or 8.
Free to move or cancel up to 48 hours before. We confirm your chef within 24 hours.
£100–£170a visit, travel and clean-up included
8–12portions left in your fridge
2–4 hrsin your kitchen, start to finish
London-widemost of London, no travel charge
Three kinds of private chef
"Private chef" covers three quite different things in London. Worth knowing which one you want before you start asking for quotes.
A chef for one evening
A dinner party, a birthday, a tasting menu for eight. Cooked and served on the night, usually quoted per head. Plenty of good London services do this. We are not one of them, and we would rather say so than take the booking.
A personal chef who cooks your week
One visit, two or three dishes batch cooked into eight to twelve portions, left labelled in your fridge, kitchen cleaned. One visit, or a pack of 4 or 8. This is the kind of private chef oishee is, at a published price rather than a quote.
If you want the first, an agency is the right call. If you want the second, there are good London services for it and we will happily say so. If you want the third, keep reading.
What a private chef costs with us
Many London private chefs quote per event or per head. Ours is a published price list.
| Option | 2 dishes · 8 portions | 3 dishes · 12 portions |
|---|---|---|
| Fully hands-offMost popularThe chef buys everything, pantry and fresh | £140 | £165 |
| HybridThe chef brings the Japanese pantry, you buy the fresh | £120 | £135 |
| You shopWe send the list, you buy everything | £100 | £115 |
| DeliveredCooked at ours, delivered in our containers | £145 | £170 |
Every price includes the chef's time, their travel and a kitchen left clean. The only thing that changes it is who buys the ingredients. Packs bring it down: 5% off for 4 visits, 10% off for 8. Full prices, discounts and payment terms.
Two minutes to book.
Pick your dishes and a date, and we confirm your chef within 24 hours.
A private chef is a person, not a platform
What you are actually booking.
Most private chef services in London are marketplaces. You pick from a menu, somebody you have never spoken to turns up, and you never hear from them again. We interview every oishee chef in person, we have eaten their cooking, and we match you to the one whose regional style suits what you want. Each of them learned these dishes in a family kitchen in the part of Japan they are from. You can read about the chefs cooking for us now before you book.
01
The chef comes to you
Your kitchen, your hob, your containers. Nothing arrives reheated, unless you would rather we cooked at ours and delivered, which we also do.
02
Home cooking, not restaurant plates
Tonkatsu, gyudon, Japanese curry, miso glazed salmon. The dishes Japanese households actually eat on a weeknight, not a tasting menu.
03
They bring the Japanese pantry
Rice, miso, soy, mirin, dashi, sake, curry roux, panko. You are never sent out to hunt down an unfamiliar ingredient.
04
A fixed price, published
£100 to £170 a visit depending on the dishes and who buys the ingredients. No quote, no per-head maths. See the full prices.
How we vet a chef
You are letting someone into your home. This part is not left loose.
Interviewed in person
We meet every chef face to face before they cook for a customer. You are letting someone into your home, so this is not done over email.
Level 2 Food Hygiene certified
Every oishee chef holds a current certificate. It is the standard qualification for anyone handling food commercially in the UK.
They cook for us first
Each chef makes our core dishes for us before they set foot in your kitchen, so we know what their food actually tastes like.
The same chef, where we can
With a pack we send the same chef wherever we can. If they ever cannot make a visit we tell you who is coming instead, well before the day.
What having a chef in your kitchen is like
Four steps, start to finish. The longer version.
Step one
You say what you want
Two or three dishes from the menu, or something that is not on it. Pick a date and a start time, and we confirm your chef within 24 hours.
Step two
They arrive with the pantry
Your chef brings the Japanese staples, and the fresh produce too if you asked us to source it. Otherwise we send a short shopping list beforehand.
Step three
They cook, you get on
Three or four hours depending on the dishes. Let them in, be around when they leave, and otherwise carry on with your day. No hovering required.
Step four
The kitchen is left clean
Washed up, surfaces wiped, and the week portioned into your containers and stacked in the fridge.
What people say after a visit
Two of the notes we have had back.
It was excellent. Maiko was a brilliant and skilled home cook. The food is delicious and the kitchen was left very clean and tidy afterwards. I would love to re-use the service.Usman, Finsbury ParkCooked by Maiko
Ayako was excellent and we really enjoyed the experience! The meals were so tasty and special. We will definitely look to use this service again and highly recommend it to others.Darragh, WalthamstowCooked by Ayako
The full menu
Back to all eight dishes
Or have it delivered instead
For when you would rather not host anyone.
Most people book a chef into their own kitchen, which is what this page describes. If you would rather not have anyone in the house, we cook everything in our kitchen and deliver the same day. We source the ingredients for that option and provide the containers, so it is £145 for two dishes and £170 for three.
Either way the output is the same: a week of Japanese food, portioned and ready. If what you care about is the weekly routine rather than the visit itself, the meal prep page covers that side in more detail.
Where our chefs cook
We cook across most of London, and travel is always included.
Kensington
Notting Hill
Chelsea
Fulham
Wandsworth
Clapham
Hampstead
Camden
Islington
Finsbury Park
Stoke Newington
Shoreditch
Hackney
Walthamstow
We cook just outside these areas more often than not, and we add new ones as we bring on more chefs. See every area we cover, or put your postcode into the booking form and know in one click.
It depends entirely on which kind you mean. A full-time household chef is a salaried role placed through an agency. A chef for a dinner party is usually quoted per head for the evening. A personal chef who batch cooks your week is the middle option, and ours is £100 to £170 a visit for eight to twelve portions, including the chef's time, their travel and a clean kitchen. That is £9.58 to £18.13 a portion.
People use both terms. A private chef is usually employed full time by one household. A personal chef visits regularly and cooks a batch of meals to leave behind. We work the second way: a chef comes to your London home for one visit, meal preps for the week, and cleans up before they go.
No. A visit produces 8 to 12 portions left in your fridge for the week ahead, not table service for an evening. If you want a Japanese dinner cooked and served to guests, we are not the right fit, and we would rather say so than take the booking.
Japanese home cooking rather than restaurant food. The core menu is chicken teriyaki, tonkatsu, chicken katsu, agedashi tofu, Japanese curry, miso glazed salmon, gyudon and veggie mapo tofu. Our chefs cook well beyond that list, so ask if you want something else.
Every chef is interviewed in person before they cook for a customer, holds a current Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate, and has cooked our core dishes for us so we know what their food tastes like.
You need to let them in and be around when they leave, but you do not need to stay in the kitchen. Most people carry on working, or go out and come back to a full fridge.
Your kitchen and whatever pots and pans you already have, plus four to six decent-sized containers for the food. On the hybrid and you-shop options you also buy the fresh produce, from a list we send you when we confirm.
Yes. Buy a pack of 4 visits at 5% off or 8 at 10% off, book each one when it suits you, weekly if you like, and we send the same chef wherever we possibly can.
No. The chef's travel is included wherever we cook, so an address in Walthamstow costs exactly the same as one in Chelsea.
Changes and cancellations are free up to 48 hours before the visit, so we have time to let your chef know. Message us on WhatsApp to change or cancel a visit, and check what's left on a pack from Manage booking.
Book a Japanese private chef.
Across London, from £100 a visit. Tell us your dishes and we will confirm your chef within 24 hours.