What a private chef dinner actually costs in Nashville

Almost every first email I get asks the same thing in a polite, roundabout way: what is this going to cost? Here are the actual numbers I charge, why they are structured the way they are, and what is included so you can compare honestly against a restaurant or a caterer.

The short answer

• Preset dinner experiences: $95 – $175 per guest, fully inclusive.
• Dinner for Two: a flat $500 total for exactly two guests, Nashville local.
• Custom menus: a $100 reservation to hold the date, against a $75-per-guest food and service floor.
• Event catering: from $42 per guest, buffet style, Nashville and Middle Tennessee only.

The preset menus

After Hours — fire burgers, stacks and chef pizza served in waves — is $95 per guest with a $750 event minimum. The Southern Table, four courses of modern Southern cooking, is $125 per guest with a $750 minimum. FABLE · Wild South, the five-course flagship tasting menu, is $175 per guest with a $900 minimum.

An event minimum is not an extra charge. It is the floor the night has to clear for me to source, prep and staff it. A party of six on The Southern Table is $750 either way — six guests at $125 is exactly the minimum. A party of four on the same menu still comes to $750, which works out to $187.50 a head. Below about six guests, the minimum is doing the work, which is exactly why Dinner for Two exists as a flat $500 instead.

What the per-guest price covers

All of it, other than alcohol:

• Menu design around your guests, the season and any dietary restrictions
• Sourcing and shopping — every ingredient, no separate grocery bill afterwards
• Cooking on site in your kitchen, with my own tools
• Plates, silverware and serving pieces
• A dedicated server for the table on seated preset dinners
• Course-by-course service and clearing
• Full kitchen cleanup
• Travel inside the Nashville metro

The two things that sit on top: a 20% gratuity, added automatically for parties of eight or more, and — only if you are outside Middle Tennessee — a $350 travel fee against a $1,500 event minimum for destination private dining.

Worked examples

Two guests, anniversary, East Nashville. $500 total. No gratuity, no minimum, no travel fee, any core menu.

Eight guests, birthday, Green Hills, The Southern Table. 8 × $125 = $1,000, plus 20% gratuity = $1,200.

Twelve guests, bachelorette weekend rental, After Hours. 12 × $95 = $1,140, plus 20% = $1,368.

Twenty-two guests, rehearsal dinner, Franklin, Wild South at $170. 22 × $150 = $3,300, plus 20% = $3,960.

Sixty guests, company party, Nashville. That is past the 30-guest cap for plated private dining, so it becomes Event Catering — from $42 per guest, with service-style minimums of $750 drop-off, $1,500 hosted buffet and $2,500 full-service.

How it compares to going out

Twelve people at a good Nashville restaurant, with wine, tip and rideshares both ways, tends to land in the same range as a private dinner at $100 – $125 a head. The difference is not really the money. It is that everyone eats the same courses at the same table, the night runs on your clock instead of a two-hour turn, and nobody drives.

How payment works

Availability is live on the site and the date is only held once payment clears. Deposits are 25% for dates 46 or more days out, 50% inside 45 days, and the full amount inside 14 days. Any remaining balance is charged automatically to the same card seven days before the dinner, so there is nothing to settle on the night.

If you want to sanity-check a number for your own party size, the booking page prices it live before you pay anything.