A private chef in Calgary, cooking at your own table

Who cooks, and what they cook

Four kitchens with very little overlap: classical French, fusion fine dining, Latin American for a long table, and a fusion-and-seafood card that runs at three prices. Full profiles behind each name.

The four, with the per-guest price of every menu they publish

Cook	Cooks what	Seats	Entry	Typical	Top	Rated
Nathaniel Davis	Fusion · Seafood · Italian	2–20	176	220	250	4.534
Nicolas Desinai	French · Mediterranean · Italian	2–20	160	162	176	4.857
Marina Mellino	Latin American · Argentine asado · Italian	10–20	100	162	225	4.812
Igor Dudkin	Fusion fine dining · French · Italian	2–20	185	231	277	4.833
All four, together	78 menus listed	2–20	100	176	277	4.7136

Canadian dollars, per guest, off the menus each cook publishes. Entry is their cheapest card, typical the middle of everything they list, top the dearest. The last column is the mean rating and how many ratings sit behind it; the bottom row totals all four.

How much does a private chef cost in Calgary?

The four publish 78 menus between them, and the sheet runs from C$100 to C$277 a guest, with the middle of everything listed at C$176. Read it as one seat at the table rather than an hourly rate: the food, their hours at your stove, the plating and the tidy-up afterwards are held inside that rate, while drinks and any drive past the ring road sit outside it. The arithmetic takes the same three numbers and multiplies them out by how many are eating.

Inside the ring road, and past it

Calgary is the whole of the service area, quadrant to quadrant, and the bookings on the record are spread across it — Mount Royal Elbow Park Britannia Altadore Inglewood Bridgeland Hillhurst Varsity Aspen Woods Springbank Hill Tuscany Mahogany Auburn Bay Cranston Seton Currie — plus the short-term rentals downtown that keep turning up in the reviews. Past the ring road it becomes a conversation about the drive rather than a no:Springbank Bearspaw Chestermere Cochrane Airdrie Okotoks Priddis Bragg Creek Canmore Banff. Nicolas Desinai has years of line work south of the city, Marina Mellino writes a menu specifically for the mountains, and Nathaniel Davis has already done a Canmore weekend — so the far list is not theoretical. Expect the travel to be priced separately once you leave the city.

What people booked them for

Birthdays and anniversaries dominate, but the record also holds a company Christmas party, a family reunion, a weekend in the mountains and one booking that changed address the day before.

The last column is the sense of what the host wrote afterwards, not a quotation. The price column is that cook’s cheapest published menu — for Marina Mellino that is her batch card, not the dinner she cooked that night. What each host actually paid is between them and the cook.

How a booking runs

Pick the kitchen you want

Read across the four and start where the cooking appeals to you; the prices are there so the shortlist is honest rather than a surprise later. Three of the four list several price steps, so one kitchen can meet you at two budgets.

The menu gets written for your table

Nobody here sends a fixed card and stops. Courses get swapped for allergies, for children eating earlier, for the one guest who does not eat fish.

They shop, cook, and hand the kitchen back

Groceries sit inside the per-guest price, so the cook arrives with the food and works in your kitchen — plated, family style or standing, whatever the menu asks. Clearing up is theirs too. The figure you read at step one is the figure you pay.

What lands on the table

Nathaniel Davis

Fusion, top card · 4 courses

Scallops seared in yuzu butter

Nicolas Desinai

French, exclusive · 4 courses

Pressed avocado and prawns with burrata

Marina Mellino

Asado, Argentine · 4 courses

Beef empanadas

Igor Dudkin

Fun & Joy · 4 courses

Saffron risotto croquettes, mozzarella centre, roasted tomato passata