Is it reliable to invite the chef to your house for dinner? .

The "secret weapon" became a "time bomb".

The folk proverb says, "Don't be greedy for children. After Laba, it will be the year.". A bowl of Laba porridge kicked off the Spring Festival. The Spring Festival is full of reunion and celebration, and the symbol of reunion and celebration is undoubtedly the New Year's Eve. Seeing that the Spring Festival is coming, the Beijing white-collar Ling family is somewhat "restless" because of the New Year's Eve dinner.

The so-called "not peaceful", that is, the cold war, the stalemate between Zhao Xiaoling and her mother Jiang Yan, is because Zhao Xiaoling originally prepared the "secret weapon" for the New Year's Eve dinner-the chef's home cooking. However, in Jiang Yan's view, "this is simply nonsense. An outsider who doesn't know the details will come to New Year's Eve and then screw it up. "

Zhao Xiaoling insists that "going to a hotel is expensive, it is better to eat at home." If you eat at home, cooking is too much trouble. Now, I finally have the best of both worlds "

Where can I have New Year's Eve dinner? How to eat? Many families have encountered Zhao Xiaoling's entanglement. This year, the once seemingly high-end and distant way of New Year's Eve dinner-private kitchen, began to enter the homes of ordinary people. However, will there be a problem with food safety if the chef passes the test? Just like Zhao Xiaoling's mother, many people are worried about these problems. After all, for China people, the New Year's Eve dinner is really a big event.

Consumer:

Strangers enter the door worrying about safety.

The hotel you can see is not fixed, and the online shopping for New Year's Eve is not at ease. Where a family of more than a dozen people ate the New Year's Eve dinner puzzled Zhao Xiaoling for several months.

"Later, my friend recommended me a chef's door App. I tried it once and felt good, so I booked a New Year's Eve dinner. " Zhao Xiaoling told reporters that the New Year's Eve dinner she booked through the chef's door-to-door App was 3,888 yuan for Golden Rooster's Dawn Package. "There are also 65,438 yuan +0.888 yuan Five Blessingg package and 8,888 yuan exhibition package."

It is understood that on the App where Zhao Xiaoling made an appointment for the chef to come to the door, the form of home cooking for the private chef's New Year's Eve was enriched. In Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai, the fixed menu mode has been jumped out. During the New Year's Eve, users can choose their own satisfied chefs and arrange the New Year's Eve according to their own tastes. The dishes are provided by customers themselves, and the process of chef service is more open and transparent. Considering that it is difficult to prepare dishes in the north before the New Year, we should cooperate with suppliers to ensure the freshness of ingredients in the form of a set meal, and sort out all the ingredients in the set meal the day before the New Year's Eve.

"3888 yuan can already book the hotel banquet, and the quality is guaranteed. Who knows if this chef is reliable? " Even so, Jiang Yan expressed strong opposition to her daughter's choice from the beginning. "New Year's Eve is too important for China people. I can't treat it as an experiment. "

Finally, Jiang Yan also used her own "trump card". If Zhao Xiaoling can solve the following problems, she will let the chef in:

How to ensure the safety and reliability of door-to-door service-Jiang Yan's worry is that "strangers can't be malicious people when they enter the house";

Is there a unified training and a health certificate? Jiang Yan said that "safety is the most important".

In this regard, the founder of a chef's door-to-door service platform once replied: "As a platform, we will strictly control every chef. Chefs stationed in the platform need to go through interviews, food tasting, identity registration, and high deposit payment. The platform will also uniformly record the identity information of the chef. "

But this statement does not reassure Jiang Yan.

The reporter noticed through interviews that there are not many people coming to the door with private kitchens now, and the reason is very similar to Jiang Yan's worry.

"Some chefs have only a few hundred orders on the platform every day, which can't be compared with the million-level takeaway order." Wang Tai, who has been engaged in catering management in hotels such as Changfu Palace and Xinqiao Hotel, told reporters that for most people, ordering takeout is unhealthy but convenient, and it is still too much trouble for people to cook at home; It is difficult to ask your aunt to cook, but only such long-term service can build trust.

In this regard, the CEO of "Good Chef" once said that private kitchen is a natural extension of the field of domestic economics. However, the results of the reporter's visit seem to be inconsistent with it.

In the online 103, only 12% people expressed their willingness to invite chefs to provide services. Many people say that this seems to be a kind of "aristocratic service".

It is understood that private kitchens now mainly serve non-family holidays, family dinners or weekend youth gatherings.

"Private kitchens used to be exclusive to rich people with high families. Now flying into the homes of ordinary people, the price is ok, but the food is not necessarily amazing. As a high-frequency demand, eating every day seems a bit extravagant. " Even if a chef is booked to cook a New Year's Eve dinner, Zhao Xiaoling has her own considerations for this service.

Old chef:

Being a cook at home is "unbearable"

In the eyes of many people, the chef is invited to the door for the taste that he can't make, but what if the taste is not satisfactory?

Such a question mark also exists in Wang Tai's mind. "Customers are dissatisfied with the chef's cooking or fail to meet their expectations. There is no clear way to deal with disputes and charges. " .

Zhou, who has been a chef for more than 20 years, said, "No matter how good a chef is, you give him 50 kinds of stoves, 50 kinds of fires and 50 kinds of pots." In the case of cooking for the first time, a dish can make dozens of differences for you, and the habit of gestures is still very important in the cooking process. Chefs can bring knives to the door, but not pots and stoves. Even if the Michelin chef changed the kitchen, it would be difficult for him to perfectly copy the dishes he cooked in the restaurant at one time. You can also watch the chef fight for hegemony on TV. Most chefs are not standard and most of them are unfamiliar with the kitchen. "

In the face of a reporter's question about whether to consider cooking home cooking, Zhou shook his head affirmatively and said, "It's unrealistic, I can't stand it."

"A person washing, cutting, frying, for the chef's professional requirements are actually very high, but also by the way, clean the kitchen of the customer's house, can not leave a pile of garbage after cooking. The little boy who just left school can't adapt. Most of the catering industry is based on meals, and no one comes to work part-time. Of course, there are also some star-rated hotels that can work part-time in three shifts, but how many people are willing to work part-time? " Zhou said to him.

For chefs, Zhou thinks there are also problems. "For example, if the customer cancels the order and the ingredients have been purchased, how to calculate the loss? There is also how to solve problems or disputes when cooking in customers' homes. "

Many private chefs told reporters that there are still some bottlenecks in home cooking. "If it is a family gathering, we suggest preparing our own materials." Mr. Yang from a private kitchen team said that generally speaking, business banquets have high requirements on the specifications of dishes, and it may be difficult to prepare materials by yourself. The family banquet is mainly home-cooked food, and the price of the materials prepared by yourself is more appropriate.

Mr. Gu, a private chef, said that orders are not fixed every month at present. When there are many orders, ten tables a month can earn two or three thousand yuan a month. Mr. Wei said that he is a part-time chef, and if he is full-time, his income is difficult to guarantee. "The door-to-door service fee of two or three hundred yuan is not low. A little higher, customers may not accept it. " Mr. Wei introduced that if there are orders every day for a month, the income is only 6000 yuan.

"The price of contracted materials is higher," Mr. Wei said. On the one hand, he worked part-time as a private kitchen and didn't have enough time to prepare materials. On the other hand, if it is a family dinner, it may be hard for many families to accept it if it exceeds 600 yuan, and they think it is better to eat out.

"There have been relevant industry tests before, requiring different private kitchens to prepare the same four dishes. In this way, the price of private kitchens is very different. " Regarding the provision of ingredients, Wang Tai told reporters that "if private chefs cook with expired or deteriorated ingredients, customers will have stomach problems after eating them, and there are still problems in solving such follow-up disputes".

In addition, some consumers said that even if they choose on-site service, they will only choose on-site manicure or makeup services to let strangers cook in their own kitchens. This is not safe enough for many consumers. Even if the platform will buy insurance for users who place orders, there are still hidden concerns about the safety of consumers and chefs.

Operator:

Security is still an unavoidable difficulty.

"In addition to the consideration of service quality, the practicality and safety of on-site chefs have also become important factors for users to consider. On the whole platform, the qualifications and identity of chefs have basically been completely registered and checked. " Wang Tai told reporters, however, chefs working in physical catering institutions need to have employment certificates, health certificates and technical grade certificates, while private chef App is still a relatively new catering service format, and the service standards are still blank. More industry norms need time to be perfected. "Especially in the purchase of ingredients, if users bring their own ingredients, it is recommended to buy them in regular food markets and supermarkets; If it is a chef's purchasing, it is suggested that the platform should manage purchasing channels in a unified way and select qualified and traceable suppliers, which can reduce food safety risks. In the chef's door-to-door service, if there is a food safety problem, diners can also find an online platform to defend their rights. "

In the middle of June 5438+ 10 last year, the chef's door-to-door platform "Cooking" announced that it was difficult to find a suitable profit model, giving up the chef's door-to-door business and transforming into a takeaway. Previously, Hou Pengfei, the co-founder of "Love Kitchen", said in an interview with the media that "Love Kitchen" will expand to Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu and other cities after obtaining financing last year, but until now, the business of "Love Kitchen" is still only distributed in four cities in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

According to industry analysis, the cold winter of capital has exposed the pain point of chef's door-to-door service, and the stickiness between users and chefs is weak. The platform can only increase the stickiness of both parties by burning money subsidies. Without a suitable profit point, the platform can only choose transformation.

More importantly, the chef's door-to-door platform has been transformed into a high-end family banquet, which not only meets the needs of consumers to eat at home, but also meets the needs of some consumers for high-end banquets. However, the service quality of chefs who provide door-to-door service, as well as the safety of users and chefs, are still unavoidable difficulties for the chef's door-to-door platform.

According to an insider close to "cooking", conflicts between chefs and "cooking" users occur from time to time. "Those chefs who work in big restaurants have a clear division of labor in the kitchen and don't need to do everything, and the kitchen hierarchy of Chinese restaurants has always existed. When a high-level chef comes to a consumer's home, he should not only wash vegetables and cook, but also ensure that the user is satisfied. Many chefs can't adapt, so conflicts often occur. "

As a former operator of such platforms, Li Tao is also deeply troubled. At the beginning of its launch, his private kitchen target customers were high-end people. Based on this positioning, the plan is to cooperate with high-end hotels, find master chef and cook a big meal at customers' homes.

"The cost of a meal is roughly more than 3,000 yuan." Even though it looks expensive, in Li Tao's view, this price is very "hot" because "home chefs will bring their own ingredients as well as tableware. Every big meal will have exquisite settings, just like eating in a high-end restaurant. In Shanghai, five-star hotels and high-end restaurants, a big meal also roughly needs this price. "

However, after testing the water for several months, Li Tao decided to give up the project on the grounds that "the road is too narrow to walk". Compared with the booming take-away platform, he believes that the advantage of high-end private cuisine is its own "pain point". For example, although the unit price of private kitchens is high, the relative coverage is small and the consumption frequency is very low. Generally, it is a weekend holiday or "friends come from afar", and you will think of calling a chef. It is difficult to monopolize the traffic entrance, and it is hard to say about the subsequent development. In addition, the soul of high-end private kitchen service lies in the chef. High-quality "Great God" chefs are hiding in five-star hotels. Private kitchen apps are mostly entrepreneurial enterprises, with no bargaining power, and their own profits are far from expectations. So high.