Private chefs and catering on St. Thomas

What a St. Thomas private chef charges per person

Six companies print a figure, and they are not pricing the same evening. Y.U.M VI Catering's $60 a person is the floor, a private-chef service with a $275 minimum. DiveIn in Red Hook starts a four-course dinner at $150, WITHIN in Lovenlund charges a flat $175 for three courses and one menu for the whole table, and Island Edge Culinary prices its dinners by the size of the party, $265 to $295 a person, with a six-course tasting at $365 at the top of the range. A family supper and a tasting menu are different evenings, so decide which you want before you compare names; each company's figure is in the table.

The companies that quote on request, Love City Lunch Box, Ultimate Chef Services, Chef Marshall Bishop, Fleagle by Dezign and Shelly's Cakes & Catering, are not necessarily dearer; they price the menu you ask for, and comparing them takes a week of email. Ask each for the per-person price, the fee under it and the deposit in one line, and set those side by side.

The personal chefs who cook the whole week

A personal chef in St. Thomas can mean the whole stay, not one dinner. Love City Lunch Box plans the menus before the trip and describes a week-long feast, never repeating a dish, with Chef Faye Auerbach quoting after a consultation. Ultimate Chef Services sells it as a package: arrival-night and farewell dinners, a three-night dinner package, or four days with seven services, breakfasts and drop-offs between the dinners, for groups of six or more, with an 18 percent chef service fee inside the rate and two to three months' notice asked for the longest one. Island Edge Culinary has cooked for villa parties on St. Thomas since 2019 and takes up to 25 in the house.

By our read, the week-long booking is where a chef earns the fee: the groceries come with them, the kitchen is clean each morning, and nobody drives to a restaurant after a day on the water. For the nights you cook yourselves, grocery delivery will stock the kitchen before you land.

What the St. Thomas chefs cook, and what to ask

The kitchens differ more than the prices suggest. Y.U.M VI Catering cooks Caribbean, barbecue, tapas, seafood and vegan menus; Chef Marshall Bishop leans French and Italian, with plant-based menus and a handmade-pasta class; WITHIN serves one three-course menu to the whole table, lobster on the tenderloin if you ask; Island Edge Culinary runs to a six-course tasting; and Love City Lunch Box plans a week in which no dish comes round twice.

Send the allergies and the children's ages with the first email, since every menu here is planned before the chef shops. Passion Fruit Chefs is the one company that prints a children's price. Ask whether the chef will buy the wine or you bring it; WITHIN sells batched cocktails by the gallon. And ask the owner what the kitchen holds before you book: an oven that works, a grill, and plates and glasses for the whole table.

Catering a party or a reception on St. Thomas

For a crowd the villa kitchen cannot feed, the island has caterers who bring the staff. St. Thomas Restaurant Group, whose events office is at Red Hook Plaza, caters private events from ten or fifteen guests up to 120 at a home or villa, buffet, plated, à la carte or brunch, priced on request. Island Edge Culinary's events side runs to 200, with bartending. Y.U.M VI Catering does drop-offs, buffets with servers and boxed meals for a day sail or a charter. Shelly's Cakes & Catering adds wedding cakes to eight tiers and a cooking-lab dinner party with Julius Jackson at the stove. Fleagle by Dezign names a day on the water for twenty among its work.

St. John Catering and Mathayom Private Chefs, the Coral Bay company, serves St. Thomas on its own terms: $165 a person family style or $219 plated, a $1,125 minimum here and a $225 transport fee on every on-site event. The gratuity is left to you on its private-chef menu and billed at 20 percent on site on its drop-off menu, so ask which applies before you book. For a wedding with a venue and a license, the planners are on St. Thomas weddings; for the nights out, St. Thomas eat and drink.

Gratuity, deposits and the crossing to St. John

Read the line under the price. DiveIn's 20 percent service charge turns its $150 dinner for eight into $1,440 before the wine; Y.U.M and Passion Fruit Chefs add 20 percent gratuity, and Island Edge an 18 percent administrative fee, on the same arithmetic. Deposits run to half: DiveIn and WITHIN take 50 percent to hold the date, and DiveIn keeps it if the head count drops inside 14 days, while WITHIN refunds in full more than seven days out. Island Edge wants 72 hours' notice at the least and charges a rush fee inside a week.

Five of these chefs also cook on St. John: DiveIn, Island Edge, Love City Lunch Box, Ultimate Chef Services and Chef Marshall Bishop. DiveIn and Ultimate Chef Services say the crossing carries a travel fee and do not print it, so a guest comparing a St. Thomas chef against one who lives on St. John should ask for that fee first. The St. John side, with the chefs who live there and their printed prices, is on St. John private chefs.

For owners: a welcome dinner on the first night

None of the chefs here prints a program for villa managers, so a standing arrangement is a conversation. The packages built for it are Ultimate Chef Services' Island Arrival Night dinner, WITHIN's welcome platter for six to eight, DiveIn's drop-off dinner and Y.U.M's drop-offs. A manager who offers a welcome dinner does best to fix the price with the chef for the season and name it in the listing as a priced extra, not a gift, because the fees are the chef's and arrive after the guests do. The rest of what a house can offer is on St. Thomas services.