Nathaniel Davis, private chef in Calgary

Davis builds the same four menus — fusion, seafood, Italian-Mediterranean and a local Alberta card — at three prices, and the difference between the steps is the shopping list rather than the number of courses. C$176 gets you the menu; C$250 gets you the wagyu and the lobster.

He calls himself a food narrator, which sounds like a slogan until you read the guest notes: guest notes dwell on the running order, not only on what was on the plate. Several mention him cooking, serving, then working through the counters before he left — the part hosts worry about most.

Of the four, he is the one guests have taken out of the city — a Canmore weekend shows up in his record, cooked for a house full of people who had spent the day outdoors.

Every menu he lists runs from two guests to twenty.

Fusion · Seafood · Italian · Mediterranean · Alberta produce

• C$176The menu, as listedfusion, seafood, Italian-Mediterranean or Alberta
• C$220The same menu, richerstep up in produce and protein
• C$250The top cardwagyu, lobster, tomahawk

Per guest. Drinks and travel outside Calgary sit outside these figures.

• Twenty years of professional cooking behind him
• A food business of his own, alongside an executive chef post
• Learned under senior chefs rather than through a school programme

Fusion, top cardC$250Table of 2 to 20

First out

• Scallops seared in yuzu butter
• Tuna tataki, soy, shaved radish
• Peppers stuffed with vegetables (meat-free)

Next up

• A small sushi plate — California roll, tuna, temaki
• Hot-smoked salmon with sharp pickled cucumber
• Panzanella and burrata (meat-free)

The centre

• Wagyu with garlic fried rice and vegetables
• Lobster through a rosé penne
• Tomahawk surf and turf, chimichurri vegetables
• Portobello over truffled risotto (meat-free)

The end of it

• Baked Alaska
• Japanese cheesecake
• Yuzu sorbet

One of 12 menus, rewritten here for length. Courses get changed for allergies and for what is in season.

A mother-in-law’s milestone birthday, eight at the table. She has not stopped talking about the little fried risotto bites since.

Out of an entire weekend away, dinner was the part the group kept coming back to — a long multi-course meal, and the counters clear when they went.

A dinner party where the portions were judged right and the sauces did the work. He handled the whole evening without the hosts stepping in.

Written from what each host left afterwards, in our words, with names as they signed them.

Menus are settled with the cook first; nothing is locked until you both agree the card.