Personal chef service brings new way of meal-prep for Halifax
Posted Mar 7, 2021 05:10:00 PM.
Eating professionally-cooked meals every week isn’t just now for the rich.
Easy Platter is a Halifax-based food service that brings local professional chefs, or just their meals, into homes — all at an affordable price.
“The concept is that we want to prepare everyday meals for you,” Owner Manny Singh told NEWS 95.7’s The Rick Howe Show. “We want to make sure that they’re coming in and preparing your Monday to Friday meal.
“So, when they come in, the cost per meal is about $7.75, but they’re making meals for two people for the week.”
According to Easy Platter’s Instagram page, it’s Canada’s first “on-demand personal chef service.”
It was an idea that Singh created with his wife, Poleen Kaur, after feeling unsatisfied with food delivery and delivered meal kit services.
With food delivery, Singh and Kaur found restaurant food to be expensive and lower quality once it arrived at their home.
Last year, meal kits services in Canada were most popular among Atlantic Canadians. But those services — such as HelloFresh, Goodfood and Chefs Plate — offer smaller servings, are more expensive and force the customer to prepare their own meals.
Both Singh and Kaur found that to be a chore.
“That’s what was sort of bothering us,” Singh said. “So, we wanted to make it (Easy Platter) extremely affordable and extremely customizable for everybody.”
The service is flexible for its customers: people can ask for specific meals they desire, or they can receive a few recommended recipes that a chef can cook.
Chefs can either use the groceries a customer has in their home or purchase the necessary groceries for the customer.
Then, the chef will come to the customer’s home, prepare the food, package it in separate food containers and clean up. Singh said they ensure chefs also follow all recommend COVID-19 safety and cleaning protocols.
Due to the pandemic, customers also have a fully contact-less option. They can ask the chef to prepare the food, package it and deliver it to their doorstep similar to Halifax-based meal-prep service Sauté.
When signing up, customers are also offered a range of customization. They can specify certain cuisines they enjoy, list any dietary restrictions, choose which days and times work best and even mention their preferred grocery store.
The service works on a weekly subscription. Weekly in-home meal preps are $77.50 for 10 meals (5 meals that serve two people). A weekly contact-less meal delivery also has the same number of meals but costs $117.50 to cover picking up groceries.
The chefs usually prepare the 10 meals within two or three hours. Any meals that take longer than three hours — which are usually meals a customer personally requests — cost an additional hourly fee of $29.99.
“We wanted to make sure that the personal chef service is something that is usable by all,” he said. “It’s something that’s not a premium service [and] not for the ‘rich-y-rich.’”
Currently, Easy Platter offers services from a range of local professional chefs with years of experience in various cuisines.
Some include Brendan Gorman who specializes in high protein and low carb diets and has more than 12 years of experience in local restaurants such as Il Mercato. Another chef is Barbados-raised Tobenna Wells who has more than 12 years of restaurant experience and specializes in Caribbean and French food. Turkish chef Yasemin Yalcin also offers her services and specializes in Mediterranean cuisine.
While Easy Platter is local and currently only serves the Halifax area, Singh said they have plans to expand to Ontario and other parts of Canada by the end of this year.
Haligonians can sign up for Easy Platter by visiting its website.
