Chef Ken Durbin of The At Home Chef creates unique dining experiences in people’s homes

For Ken Durbin, chef and owner of The At Home Chef, cooking at home during the pandemic was business as usual.

Well, not his home—we’re talking about the homes of his clients.

Because Durbin doesn’t work in a restaurant—he’s a private chef who helps people create memorable, special meals for small groups within their own homes.

“Our bottom line at The At Home Chef is being able to go into someone’s house and create a unique, in-home dining experience that will allow them and their guests to build memories that last a lifetime,” says the chef.

And that didn’t change during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People were still wanting to do very small things within their home, like husband or wife or something like that,” he says. He stayed busy over the last year, filling his schedule again and again.

He credits the continued demand for his services to the experience he aims to create; it’s all about enjoying a memorable, high-end meal with loved ones.

The process for creating this experience has remained the same as it was before the pandemic. When someone reaches out, he works with them to find out what he can bring to the experience. In addition to determining the date and the number of people, that means discovering the reason for the dinner and finding ways to celebrate it.

“Typically when people contact me, they’re celebrating some type of milestone birthday or anniversary or ‘Hey, we just bought this new home and we want a chef to come into our kitchen and put our kitchen through its paces,’” he says. “I just kind of get a feel for exactly what type of dinner they want to do.”

He then works with the clients to create a menu. While many have a specific idea of what they want, others want chef-driven creations. And the chef, who prefers to work with seasonal and local produce and products, has lots of ideas. He’s created menus ranging from steak and seafood to French and gluten-free.

“In all the years that I’ve done this business—for going on seven years now, I believe—we have never repeated the same menu,” he says.

After the meal’s date, time and menu are set, diners can leave everything up to the chef and his team. They provide the food, the pots and pans, the plates and utensils, and everything needed to make the dinner. Durbin says he’ll even provide a bartender if desired.

“Then we show up an hour prior to when the guests would arrive and we start integrating ourselves into the kitchen and getting everything set up, so we’re ready to go when the dinner starts. And then it’s really up to them the pace of the dinner and how they want it to go,” he says.

During the meal, Durbin does what the diners want, too—either giving them desired privacy or facilitating an interactive experience that enables the diners to learn more about what went into their meal.

And after, the chef and his team take care of all the clean-up. “It’s going to be cleaner than we found it for sure,” he adds.

While The At Home Chef business model has remained the same, it also had to adapt to the new normal. Cleaning procedures were already top-notch, but staff added masks to their uniform and the chef practiced social distancing when possible.

He also faced obstacles when it came to collecting his ingredients. “One thing that changed was getting and sourcing the ingredients from the places that I would normally source ingredients from. During the pandemic, it got a little bit more difficult to do that,” he says. “But then some farms I dealt with pivoted and were able to offer items delivered to your home.”

Despite the difficulties of the last year, Durbin feels that his business has given him the opportunity to bring joy to his clients during a turbulent time.

“Enjoy life is a mantra that I live by. Having this business is not only giving me an opportunity to help people enjoy their life, but it gives me an opportunity to enjoy mine,” he says. “I think a dinner, a really good, prepared dinner with someone you love or someone you care about, I don’t know if there’s any other better way to enjoy your life than that.”