Today we’d like to introduce you to Luca Manfe.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Luca. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Dinner with Luca started when my season of MasterChef was airing. I received a Facebook message from a family that watched the show and was coming in vacation in NYC (that’s where I used to live) and wonder if I could cook for them. After that night I saw an opportunity and by the time the show was over I had my website live with a nice ‘Dinner with Luca’ page and I got literally slammed with emails and party requests, the first three months were ridiculous: people planned parties even on Monday nights just to get me.
Now, 5 years later, I can count more than 350 ‘Dinner with Luca’ all over the country and Canada.
Has it been a smooth road?
Not sure if it was a smooth road. It was definitely a learning process.
I started this journey as an amateur Chef. People way too often think that because you get to be on TV and win a reality show, you must be a great Chef. A few months cooking on a TV show don’t make you a Chef. Just like a few months acting on Gray’s anatomy, don’t make you a doctor. Although we were not acting, you cannot learn a profession just in a few months.
The road at the beginning was very easy: everybody was reaching out to book me. Catering events, cooking demos or partnerships. The only struggle has always been how to make this a steady and regular job. And after 5 years I kind of gave up. It’s not a Dinner with Luca without Luca, so as a business model it doesn’t really work, but it doesn’t really matter because cooking for my parties is one of the things that I like the most in life. Cooking in other people’s kitchen at $12/hour not so much. Dinner with Luca is giving the possibility to travel the country and meet so many wonderful people, many of which became very good friends over the years. It’s not really a job, it’s a journey. Dinner with Luca also gave me the possibility of improving my cooking skills, technique and knowledge at my own pace and on my skin. I practice all the time: I could be practice while I make food for my family or practice for new dishes to put on my menus. I know I am the first one to say this, but it one of my favorite quotes: practice makes perfect. Nobody will ever be perfect, but it is the chase for perfection that gives that exciting feeling to keep pushing to try. I like to go back and look at dishes I used to post on social media 4/5 years ago and laugh and ask at myself: “what was I thinking?” None of those dishes look good to me now. I also feel bad for all of those people that paid so much money to have somebody make a mess in their kitchen for very mediocre food.
At the same way though, I look at the dishes I can make today and I am very proud to see how much I have learned and improved.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Dinner with Luca story. Tell us more about the business.
“Dinner with Luca” is a very unique and intimate dining experience. I am people’s private Chef for one night. The average party size is 8-14 and usually people book me for birthday parties, anniversaries or special occasions. Corporate companies hire me and book one of my dinners as a gift for their best customers. It’s usually a 4-5 course tasting menu with a few small bites to serve when people arrive and enjoy a drink. After a first conversation, I send out menu options for the customer to choose from for a menu customized around the client’s favorite foods. Menus are always seasonal and we shop for the best local and organic ingredients. After that it’s all up to me and my team! We bring all the groceries and cook most of the dinner in the client’s kitchen so people can watch us cook and ask questions and spend as much time as they wish in the kitchen. Depending on the space and the type of event there is not really a limit for the number of guest we can cook for. We cooked for up to 250 people serving finger food and buffet, although I personally prefer the smaller and intimate dinner parties.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Restaurant industry is in the middle of a big transition. Great Chefs and successful restaurant groups prefer to go on the fast and casual service route. Fast and casual makes more money than fine dining. Of course there are still the best restaurants in the world that will be pioneers of the elegant and sophisticated dining experience, but overall as a business model casual restaurants right now make more sense.
I also think that people have passed the excitement of going to a restaurant, sit down for 4 hour for a 15 course meal and pay $500 per person. Maybe it is because we are too busy or maybe because it something special that we like to do just once in a while. So if your restaurant is in Chicago or NYC you may be just fine, but other places in America may suffer with concepts like that.
I still think Chefs will continue to serve ”out of this world’ type of food, but probably it will be served from a server in jeans and on a solid wood table without any white linen. The most successful businesses will be the one who will create a unique experience, something that no-one else does yet. People are looking more and more for that experience, for that wow factor, something that makes them feel special just to be there.
Pricing:
- 4-5 course meal costs $125 per person (minimum 8 people)
- 3 finger food plus 4-5 course meal costs $150 per person (minimum 8 people)
- Party of two $500 all included
- Party of 4 $600 all included
- Party of 6 $800 all included
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dinnerwithluca.com
- Phone: 3473024091
- Email: info@dinnerwithluca.com
- Instagram: lucamanfe
- Facebook: lucamanfe
- Twitter: lucamanfe
- Yelp: Dinner with Luca
- Other: linkedin @lucamanfe
Image Credit:
CORY+CASEY PHOTOGRAPHY https://coryandcaseyphoto.pixieset.com
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