food delivery or personal chef service that delivers to Oakland CA?

July 5, 2024 1:40 PM

I'm looking for a food delivery or personal chef service that can deliver to Oakland, CA. Looking for some combination of: can accommodate dietary restrictions, can help with elimination diets, can deliver, can cook "cultural" food (i.e. not totally generic American/European food), food is pre-made.

I currently pay for CookUnity (~$100-150/week for 8-12 meals) so I'm happy to pay for something in that price range ($10-15/meal)! CookUnity is getting old because I've subscribed to them many years and they don't have that many new meals that fit my dietary restrictions, so I'm basically eating the same thing over and over. It's gotten quite bland as well, since I mostly just eat the same few Mediterranean meals from them.

I'm allergic to some nuts and am also trying to figure out which other foods are my inflammatory triggers. I'd like to try something like Whole30 but I don't have the time/energy to make all the recipes in something like Whole30 myself.

Prefer "cultural" food if possible... Asian food is great but willing to compromise on this.

I'm OK working with an individual personal chef as well, if anyone has recommendations.

I'm OK at cooking, myself, I just don't have the time/energy to figure out recipes and buy ingredients. If there was a food kit service that fit all the other requirements I'd consider that.

Don't have a car, so delivery is a must.

(Nextdish looks great but they don't deliver to Oakland. Shef seems to have poor reviews? Factor and Fresh N Lean both seem to have poor reviews / cause stomach problems. Daily Harvest had a major food safety scandal so I'm wary of them.)

posted by switchback to Health & Fitness (6 answers total)

Are any of your allergies anaphylactic or really severe? If so I would probably only trust a licensed kitchen, which limits your options a bit.

If traces of your allergy foods are ok, then you can often find great home cooks by asking in family Facebook groups in the wealthy youngish neighbourhoods near your area- a lot of families hire out their meal prep.

Where I live, I mostly see young Indian families hiring older Indian women to come to their house, batch cook a few meals, and then clean up. The going rate seems to be about $35-45 per hour, plus the cost of groceries, plus an extra hours’ pay if she also does the shopping. I haven’t tried it but have heard from several families that the food they get with this system is fantastic and also not limited to Indian cuisine - a good cook is a good cook!

(And actually - if you ensure nut-free groceries and she cooks in your nut-free home, even anaphylactic allergies would likely be safe!)
posted by nouvelle-personne at 3:17 PM on July 5 [1 favorite]

I've seen Shef.com advertised in the SF Bay Area.
posted by kschang at 3:42 PM on July 5

Reach out to your local culinary school? A friend of mine got into personal chef-ing pmuch like that: she graduated, taught some classes, and hung out her shingle. Her clients also needed her to be attentive to cultural needs, allergies, tolerance, etc, and she’s really attentive.
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:00 AM on July 6

Take a look at Modify Health, they specialize in prepared meals for various health/dietary concerns. You can choose an overall dietary option and then filter out meals to exclude various ingredients like soy or shellfish. I've not used them so I can't vouch for the quality of the food or the service.

For something like shef.com, the reviews might be variable for different chefs, so maybe you can find someone who gets good reviews and is a good fit for your food needs. I've only ordered from them once and it was fine, nothing special.

Our family has tried out a few different personal chefs over the past few years, due to some unusual combinations of medical things going on all at once. I don't think it's likely you'll find an established personal chef who could work up a specialized meal plan, cook, and deliver food for $15 per meal. Labor is the biggest expense for this type of thing, and the more industrialized prepared-meal services get the advantage of economies of scale and low hourly wage labor. But having someone who will cook to your exact needs can be very valuable. If you can afford to pay more for this type of service, I recommend contacting Eye of the Avocado - she delivers to the East Bay.
posted by expialidocious at 10:29 AM on July 6

I'm also in the Bay Area. +1 to finding someone who does this via neighborhood Facebook groups. We've also had luck on care.com
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 6:35 PM on July 6

The Plate Hustla is probably your dude!
posted by shadygrove at 11:08 AM on July 12