Individual chefs are no longer the preserve of the elite. They are an affordable luxury for the average Australian. Forget the grind of trying to decide what to eat every evening, and the drudgery of grocery shopping to make it happen. Tip those greasy, congealed take-aways in the bin. And as for busy restaurants with crowds, loud music and waiters who studiously ignore their customers, just say no. The last bastion of hard labour in the Australian home is under attack. We already have the cleaner, the lawn mower, the babysitter and the dog walker. Now meet the latest addition to the household: the personal chef. "These days it's become a really affordable luxury," says Chaim Kimel who, as the head of Epicure Personal Chefs, is fitting the bill for many. "Today, busy executives and families don't have time to cook, and they're really looking for quality of lifestyle. They work hard, and want to relax more. They want to make the most of their time off, and their time together," Kimel says. While it's long been a tradition in the service-oriented culture of the United States, which has more than 20,000 personal chefs registered, here the trend has been much slower to catch on. Only a few Australians have taken on a personal chef full-time, with most people tending to start in a slow and cautious way. It's a matter of hiring the odd personal chef for dinner parties - or for times when one needs a little extra help at home. After a while, the person starts to consider a more permanent arrangement. Aussie Home Loans boss John Symond is the latest to take on a personal chef, although he says it is not only for his own use, but for the company's corporate functions and charity events. It is far more common in Australia to contract a personal chef to prepare a number of meals in advance - either in the home or in a company's commercial kitchen to be delivered later. People like Julie Davis and her busy finance executive husband Tim, for instance, hired a personal chef when she came out of hospital with their new baby daughter. Mark Taylor, from the company Gourmet Saints, came over to their house, chatted to them about the kind of food they would like for themselves and their two-year-old son, shopped for the items, and then spent a day in the family's kitchen cooking up a storm. By the time Taylor had left, they had meals in their fridge which would last the next two weeks. "It was wonderful," says Davis. At the time, she was exhausted with the two children. She also hadn't realised that she had a thyroid condition, which was adding to her fatigue and making her depressed. "It was great having the food all there so that was one less thing to think about." The family then started to have the company in on a fortnightly basis to prepare all their meals. "When I found out about the thyroid, I had to go on a low carb diet, and then I found I had allergies to dairy, soy and a whole lot of other things," Davis says. "So they modified all their recipes for me. In the end, I really regained my health, I lost 30 kg, and the family has become used to eating well. "It also meant on the weekends we had special family time together. We didn't have to worry about doing chores." To many, it may sound like a dream come true. However, the new set of personal chefs insists it's an infinitely affordable reality. Taylor is adamant it's about to take off here. He spent some time in the US watching how fast the industry was growing before setting up his own company four years ago in Perth. In 2004 he moved to the eastern seaboard. "It can't go anywhere but upwards," Taylor says. "If people eat out or buy take-away two to three times a week, they can afford us." He points to the food it saves. "When you shop, there's an awful lot of wastage, with people constantly throwing away limp carrots from the fridge." He also underlines the health benefits. "We customise menus to their taste and dietary requirements - for instance, for people with high blood pressure, diabetes or food allergies - and we cook it all, fresh, in their home." A fortnight of meals for a couple, prepared by Gourmet Saints and left in the fridge, costs about $250 plus the cost of the food. Clients may then either reheat the meals or finish them off, steaming the rice, for example, to go with a Thai chicken curry or boiling the fresh pasta for a few minutes before adding the sauce. Kimel works a little differently. He either goes to his client's home to cook for a dinner party, or stages a special romantic meal on a beach or in a park. He also prepares meals in a commercial kitchen and delivers them to clients' homes twice a week. Kimel launched his company two years ago. He now has 40 qualified chefs on his books, whom he uses from time to time. Kimel says he is shocked by the number of young, successful businesspeople he meets who live on burgers and fried chicken from fast food restaurants. "I'm looking to get people back into their homes," he says. "You go into many of these young stockbrokers' homes and they live in their million-dollar homes like squatters. They have just a couch and a plasma TV and lots of books. They just don't eat at home." Kimel says he is offering them a way to eat healthily and conveniently while also enabling them to entertain and enjoy their home. Dinners delivered for two people for five days costs $253 plus GST. Special diets or organic alternatives incur a 15 per cent surcharge. Gift vouchers for a week's worth of meals are also a growing area of the business, with companies increasingly buying them as rewards for employees. Demand for personal chefs is more common in Sydney than in Melbourne. Kimel found this to be counter-intuitive. When he started, he imagined it would be the other way around. "In Melbourne, people seem to like spending time in their homes more than people in Sydney, but maybe they're a little more conservative," he says. Melbourne food consultant Rosario Scarpato says it's certainly been slower to take off in the south, but its progress isn't predictable. "When personal chefs started a few years ago, and the concept was just catching on, it wasn't the rich people who hired them," he says. "It's the middle classes, the ones who are busy with their lives, young people, and young executives. "They don't have much time for themselves, and they love the idea of having meals cooked for them from fresh produce bought in Victoria Market." However, Scarpato believes it is becoming more popular. "In the US and northern Europe, it's now very big," he says. "Here, there is so much potential." There are also signs that the market is becoming more diversified, with the provision of more specialised services made available on the internet. Angelo Castiglione of health company 180Degrees Fitness, for instance, is starting up his own service within the next two months, in which he provides menus over the internet, offering organic dishes which he prepares in a commercial kitchen. The food includes gluten, dairy and refined sugar-free products. "I think there's a real gap in the market for nutritionally sound food, prepared to retain maximum nutrients and greater vitamin and mineral absorption," Castiglione says. On the other hand, one of the most popular dishes on the menu of Gourmet Saints' personal chef Alison Veitch is the traditional home-comfort dish, shepherd's pie. "People love the old favourites," says Veitch. Her range of meals includes dishes such as Mediterranean-baked fish with tomato, olives, garlic and cheese served with broad beans, chicken curry with lemongrass and cashew nuts, and Japanese-style braised beef with wok-fried udon noodles. Veitch says: "I've found a lot of people these days haven't learnt how to cook so they eat out a lot or bring in take-away. But they really want good, healthy food well prepared in their own home." At the moment, the most established part of the market is the catered dinner party at home, where there is a lot of competition. At the Melbourne head office of Chefs On The Run, operations manager Vanessa Wiedenmann says many companies hire them for dinner parties to reward customers. This comes at a cost of $38 an hour per chef on weekdays, and between $41 and $46 on weekends. "It's definitely a growing market, and in Sydney more than Melbourne and Brisbane," she says. | 
