Private Estate Dining · Santa Barbara Coast
Some dinners are just dinner. And some are the reason people flew in from out of town, the ones someone brings up six months later. Those are the ones I cook for.
Restaurants are public. Everyone around you is having their own evening, and yours has to compete with the room. A private chef dinner is different — the whole kitchen, the whole evening, is yours.
I cook for groups ranging from two people to around twenty. Intimate anniversary dinners where every course is built around the two of you. Birthday celebrations where the menu reflects something real about the guest of honor. Holiday gatherings where the food is actually good, not just plentiful.
For events in Santa Barbara and Ojai, the setting tends to be exceptional already — estates, properties with views, homes with real dining rooms. The food should match that. It usually doesn't, when you're ordering off a standard catering menu. That's the gap I fill.
"The occasion shapes everything — the courses, the pace, the way the evening unfolds."— Chef Ryan McLaughlin
Most of my event work is centered around Ojai and the Santa Barbara area. The properties here — estates, vineyard homes, ranch properties — are built for this kind of entertaining. The views cooperate. The dining rooms are serious.
I also cook in Montecito, Hope Ranch, and Ventura regularly. If you're planning something in a neighboring area, reach out — I'll travel for the right occasion.
The more I know upfront — the occasion, who's coming, the venue — the better the menu I can build. I'll respond within 24 hours.