After winning the culinary show, Rafael Kazumyan invested part of the prize money in opening his own business. His service helps Muscovites try dishes from restaurants without leaving home, and helps chefs take a break from boring Caesar salad and prepare risotto according to their grandmother’s recipe. Prices for an off-site dinner start from 9 thousand rubles, and every week the service fulfills from four to 11 orders.

Gastronomic project “Fish. Meat. Two knives"

START-UP CAPITAL: 400 thousand rubles

Rafael Kazumyan and Luigi Rapoli - brand chefs, Armen Agadzhanov
- marketing and business development, Polina Fursova and Lika Ebanoidze -
PR and public relations

Rafael Kazumyan, project founder
"Fish. Meat.
Two knives"

Winning the TV show

RAPHAEL: I worked in many different companies that had nothing to do with the restaurant business: I was selling cables, building roads and houses. But I always knew that my place was somewhere in the culinary field.

My friends and I often got together and had a delicious time: I organized tastings, prepared dishes from rare products, and read books about cooking all the time.

I got the opportunity to get more involved in the restaurant theme after winning the culinary show “MasterChef”. Participation in this project was a turning point for me: there I met the judges - restaurateurs Arkady Novikov and Alexander Sorkin, and chef Mirko Dzago. They helped me get an internship - first I worked at Novikov’s Bolshoi restaurant, and then came under the patronage of Dzago.

In addition to connections, winning the project gave me a million rubles and the opportunity to study at the Le Cordon Bleu culinary academy in Paris. This was my main dream.

Own business

The idea of ​​a project in which anyone could hire a professional chef for the evening had long been in my head, but I lacked the team to implement it. I was talking to my friend Luigi, who was then the personal chef of footballer Samuel Eto'o, and he told me that a lot of people would like to have a personal chef. And then I thought: “Why don’t they have it? Because he needs to be hired for a whole month? For a year? Why can’t you hire him for one evening?”

I knew that sometimes chefs work at private events, but it is not so easy for them to find personal orders. On the other hand, clients also don’t know how to contact the chef. They come to the restaurant and they like the food. But they won’t go into the kitchen and say: “Come to my house to cook.” We decided to give people the opportunity to eat tasty and high-quality food at home, and for chefs to find interesting orders.

In August 2013, I registered the domain yourpersonalchef.ru and the company “Fish. Meat. Two knives." We chose this name because I am an absolutely meat person, and the Neapolitan Luigi is an absolutely fish person. Two knives equal two chefs. We thought through the culinary side of the project, but we lacked an intelligent manager to implement it. Then Armen came to the team and began developing the site and concept.

Investments and income

I invested 400 thousand rubles into the project from the million I won at the MasterChef competition. Money was needed mainly for website development, concept and other numerous expenses. We paid for ourselves quite quickly - in the first two months after launching the site. We have no fixed expenses, so from a financial point of view we can breathe quite easily. We do not pay huge rent, do not employ a staff of chefs, do not sell alcohol and do not have to buy an alcohol license, and our own restaurant is the whole of Moscow, the apartments of everyone who calls us, and this “restaurant” does not require fabulous investments from us.

Now we have from four to 11 orders per week. The average bill is 15 thousand rubles. We are ready to scale the project and are starting to look toward investors. For the last three months, the turnover has been about 1–1.5 million rubles per month.

Terrine and solyanka

Orders started coming to us when we had not yet launched the website. We tested the project on friends, and at first everything worked thanks to word of mouth. The first client came to us from my mother-in-law. Whether this is good or not, I don’t know, but I remember this order very well. They told us: “Raphael, we invite you so that you will amaze us.” And we really tried to surprise: we prepared hare terrines with pistachios, magret de canard (smoked duck breast), sea bass in salt with artichoke sauce, venison with celery puree with white truffles, fried foie gras, pine cones and pear puree .

Our clients are different. Most often, people want to be given emotions. This is what we do. The project has no format restrictions. You can invite the chef to any party, celebration, corporate event, organize a culinary bachelorette party, surprise, birthday, children's party, wedding, buffet table, pizzaiolo show, lesson in mastic modeling or any master class - from making pasta to complex desserts.

You can actively communicate with the chef during the evening and even help him in the kitchen. Or, on the contrary, you can order a chef who will prepare dinner for you and leave. We also have gift cards - you can give a personal chef to someone for a wedding, housewarming or other occasion.

The chef called us in a slight panic with words :
“Guys, what the hell is Solyanka?!”

We have clients who order a chef for the whole day, and he prepares breakfast, lunch and dinner for them. There are those who adhere to a certain diet and want the cook to make a tasty and original dish from the foods that he can eat.

In addition to the services of personal chefs, we provide services for creating recipes for websites, books, applications, and also develop menus for corporate clients whose business is related to gastronomy.

We had a very funny experience with one of the best Italian chefs on our team. He worked outside the city, cooking all weekend for a wealthy man. After dinner, around midnight, the client impromptu asked our Italian to prepare hodgepodge for him the next day! The chef, of course, immediately called us in a slight panic with the words: “Guys, what the hell is Solyanka?!” We spent a long time explaining to him how to cook it, because the Italian was unfamiliar with such a dish. As a result, the solyanka was prepared, everyone was very happy, and the chef had a new dish in his arsenal.

On plastic plates

All work on the project is divided into three conventional sectors. The first sector is PR, for which Polina and Lika are responsible. The second sector is everything related to the kitchen, products, orders, cooks. Luigi and I are responsible for this. And the third sector is commercial development and the Internet, for which Armen and Levon are responsible. Armen and I focused on this project, the rest have their main place of employment. But we find time to communicate. We have a corporate email, WhatsApp, and we try to meet twice a week.

When we receive a request, we ask the person about his preferences and create a menu. We also find out what equipment and utensils are in the kitchen, and if necessary, we go to the place and inspect it. Most often we only bring knives with us, but if necessary we can provide everything you need for dinner. It also happened that people wanted our cooks, but didn’t want to bother with dishes, so they bought plastic plates. It’s the client’s choice, and it doesn’t matter at all, because the main thing is the food.

On the eve of the event, we purchase products. We bring the client a receipt from the store, and he pays separately for the products and separately for the services of the chef, depending on his category and the selected menu.

Chefs love working with us, that’s why in restaurants they only prepare Caesar salad
or arugula
with shrimps

Italian cuisine is the most popular. Clients often order pasta and risotto, rack of lamb, salad with grilled seafood... A minimum dinner for two costs from 9 thousand rubles for the services of a chef. It usually includes an appetizer or salad, main course and dessert. An average dinner for six people - from 15 to 20 thousand rubles - with an appetizer, salad, first, second and dessert. Our services are ordered not only by rich people, but also simply by those who know how to count and understand that a dinner for six people, which would cost 60–70 thousand rubles in a restaurant, costs less with us.

Our work does not end with the preparation of the last dish. Most often, cooks communicate with clients, get feedback from the dishes, and, of course, clean up the kitchen after themselves.

Rest from "Caesar"

The chefs themselves contact us. All our chefs are freelancers who have a main place of work. Now we work with more than 20 chefs, each of whom represents their own direction. We are constantly expanding our database - we receive about four resumes per week. If tomorrow a client asks for a Creole dinner, we will find him a suitable chef.

Chefs like to work with private orders, because in a restaurant you work from a well-developed and rather trivial menu, since it is believed that people only eat Caesar salad or arugula with shrimp. And our idea is authenticity. We want to cook pasta carbonara the way the Italian chef's grandmother makes it, and also give our customers the opportunity to try dishes that the chef came up with as a result of his practice in Singapore or travel in Peru.

When I interned at the Bolshoi, I noticed a position on the menu: “Grilled pigeon with foie gras and truffles.” I asked the chef of the restaurant what the most delicious thing can be made from pigeon, and he answered me: “Just cook the pigeon with herbs, it will be very tasty.” But why then doesn’t he just sell boiled pigeon? Yes, he simply cannot sell it! What is sold here is the word “grill”, the word “foie gras”, not the word “pigeon”. And we want to convey to people this conventional “boiled pigeon”.

Future plans

By the end of this year, I would like to reach 30 orders per week and achieve a turnover of 2–4 million rubles per month. In a yearly perspective, we would like to have our own office-studio with a kitchen, organize a food purchasing service, have about 100 orders per week, our own studio for conducting master classes and organize a culinary show.

Photos: Anton Berkasov

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A chic table for an anniversary or any other celebration is the dream of any housewife. I want everything to be beautiful and perfect, and in a short time. But, unfortunately, the fast pace of life and busyness do not give many housewives satisfaction from the holiday. Groceries shopping, cooking, standing in front of a hot stove only add fatigue to the modern rhythm of life. A way out of the vicious circle can be found by calling a cook to your home.

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In order to invite a chef to your event, you need to contact us and we will select the best candidates for you.

After you decide on a chef, you need to discuss the nuances of the event:

Difficulty of dishes.

Number of people.

Availability of additional equipment.

Purchase of products.

Table setting.

Need for an assistant.

In most cases, our chefs work from home, preparing and serving the table for holidays. A chef can perform culinary magic no matter the size of your event. Calling a chef to your home is an ideal solution for those who do not have time to prepare a celebration. All that is required from the customer is to choose a menu and enjoy a holiday or romantic dinner. The cook can prepare dishes of various cuisines, as well as a diet or children's table. He will fulfill any of your wishes and set the table. The flavors of the dishes will leave only pleasant impressions of the holiday.

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Service “Fish. Meat. Two Knives”, which a young, ambitious team is working on, provides catering services to wealthy customers. They arrive when called and arrange a “gastronomic fiesta” in the client’s kitchen. The number of people wishing to use their services is increasing exponentially. We decided to explore their interesting business and tell you about how Rafael Kazumyan’s culinary business empire is built.

It all started with Rafael Kazumyan’s victory in one of the culinary competitions, after which part of the money he won was invested in starting his own business. At the start, the concept was being worked out, and the author could not decide whether to open another establishment in the Russian capital or take an innovative approach, coming up with something unusual, in the spirit of progressive times. As a result, the bet was made on the second option, and Rafael launched a catering service that allows Muscovites to dine like in a restaurant, but without leaving their own home. For service chefs, off-site service is like an outlet, as you can move away from the boring Caesar salad and be fully creative by preparing juicy risotto or vintage dishes according to your grandmother’s recipes.

The service is gradually gaining momentum: if at the time of launch, after a small advertising campaign, there were about four orders per week, now this number reaches ten. The cost of such a dinner starts from eight thousand rubles and above, depending on the customer’s delights.

Prerequisites: Participation in a television project.

Throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to try many professions that were in no way related to the culinary industry. We had to sell cables, build buildings and even lay asphalt. But all this time, somewhere on a subconscious level lurked the thought that my true calling was the kitchen. Every time my friends and I traditionally went on vacation out of town, I took on all the troubles of preparing food: I prepared delicious dishes from rare ingredients, including my favorite seafood. When people around me read novels or literature about ways to achieve success, I buried myself in cookery books, learned new recipes, constantly experimented and invented new flavors.

Yes, I really enjoyed it, and the praise from my friends only strengthened my belief that I was capable of making a career in the culinary field.

I believe that many have at least heard about the existence of the TV show “MasterChef,” which is popular not only among housewives. The stars aligned so well that I got into it and, moreover, won a landslide victory, which allowed me to acquire very useful contacts with the “guru” of the restaurant business. First of all, we are talking about meeting such professionals as Alexander Sorkin and Arkady Novikov, who acted as judges at the competition. It was a special honor to meet the project’s Chef, the legendary Mirko Dzago, who charmed the hearts and stomachs of the most sophisticated Moscow gourmets. At the end of the show, Arkady Novikov invited me to an internship at his own restaurant “Bolshoi”, where I was supposed to gain experience under the strict guidance and mentorship of Dzago.

Participation in “MasterChef” gave me not only useful connections, but also became a kind of “start in life.” In addition to the prize fund of one million rubles, the winner was given a unique opportunity to undergo training at the famous Parisian culinary academy Le Cordon Bleu. Frankly, this used to seem like an unattainable dream to me.

How it all began.

The desire to launch my own gastronomic service has been in me since my youth, although at that time it did not have any clear outlines. Over time, I came to an understanding of what exactly I would like, but to bring the idea to life, I lacked a qualified team with which I could start an interesting and profitable business. In my professional circle there are many talented restaurateurs, and one day, while talking with my friend Luigi, who was the personal chef of a famous football player, the topic of personal customer service was raised.

Luigi shared his belief that many people would like to have their own chef. However, this is not always affordable even for people with above-average income levels. The fact is that hiring a personal chef requires full-time work with full-time employment, where, in addition to the salary, insurance and a pension contribution must be paid, which amounts to a round sum.

Then I had a thought: “What if, for personal service, the client did not need to specifically hire a chef, and the atmosphere of a restaurant dinner at home could be created by ordering the service for one evening?!”

It was no secret to me that chefs take part in various events: they cook at private balls or parties for wealthy gentlemen. At such events you can earn much more than at a relatively boring and monotonous job in a restaurant, where the flow of a professional’s creativity is limited to the menu. But in order for a chef to thoroughly switch to “outsourcing” and deal only with private orders, he needs to constantly look for them, which, against the backdrop of numerous catering services, can be difficult.

On the other hand, a person can come to a restaurant, try this or that dish, and it is quite possible that he would like to have the same dinner at home. But he won’t then go to the kitchen to discuss with the cook the possibility of ordering a home delivery. From that moment on, the idea of ​​launching a service that would allow chefs to look for interesting, profitable orders, and gourmets to be content with dinner prepared at home, seemed to me very relevant and in demand.

It started in 2013 when I registered a website yourpersonalchef.ru. In mid-August, my colleague Giuseppe and I came up with a name for the future service - “Fish. Meat. Two Knives”, which contained a symbolic combination of our favorite ingredients. Giuseppe, as a native Neapolitan, is traditionally devoted to fish and seafood. My passion is meat and everything connected with it. “Two knives” - because the core of the culinary workshop is us, together with Giuseppe.

The practical side associated with preparation was polished to an ideal state; all that remained was to attract a qualified manager who would take charge of promoting the project and communicating with partners and customers. Armen came to this position, and we liked him because he outlined his vision of the concept of our project and immediately suggested several directions for its development.

Investments and profits.

Thanks to the cash prize from the TV project “MasterChef”, the issue with the first investments was, in principle, resolved. On my own behalf, I allocated four hundred thousand rubles, which covered primary expenses, including creating a website, renting a small office, developing a concept, activating advertising channels, etc.
The peculiarity of our business model is that the functioning of the service does not require maintaining a huge staff of chefs. We can say that our “restaurant” is the entire capital, or rather, the home of every client who wishes to order our service. Consequently, the existence of this business is not based on constant financial injections, which makes us very resilient in the face of any crisis.

At the moment, we can proudly state that our team of chefs travels 8-10 times a week, and the average check per customer reaches 16 thousand rubles. Last month's turnover amounted to about a million rubles, next month we reasonably expect an increase of one and a half million.

Such indicators create favorable conditions for attracting investments, and we are already seriously thinking about this.

First orders: Solyanka and Terrine.

We had clients even before the service website was launched. Using the proven method of word of mouth, we disseminated information among our acquaintances, friends and relatives. Surprisingly, the first customer was an acquaintance of my mother-in-law. I don’t even know if this is a good or bad sign, but I remember that order to this day. The man approached me and said that he expected amazing skill from our team, which should be a good start for future success.

And we really wanted to make an excellent impression, showing maximum skill. On the MasterChef show, you can feel the tense atmosphere: confusion and mistakes, tears and hysterics, wild excitement of the participants in pursuit of the main prize. But in life everything is both more complex and interesting.

A gastronomic ensemble was served to the client’s table that day, consisting of salted sea bass with artichoke sauce, fried foie gras, venison with celery puree, hare terrines with pistachios, white truffles, smoked duck breast (French “Magre de Canary"), there was pear puree as dessert.

The main philosophy we profess is to give people unforgettable emotions. Our service clients include people with a wide variety of preferences, so the range of formats in which we can work is, in principle, unlimited. Our chefs can be ordered for events of any level, with any age category. Most often, we served large corporate events of leading enterprises, birthday parties for both children and adults, all kinds of buffets, pre-wedding and wedding events. We periodically conduct culinary master classes, where professionals demonstrate their abilities in preparing a wide range of dishes: from making pasta to complex confectionery.

During the course of the event we serve, the client is free to contact the chef, ask for a recipe, make some adjustments, satisfy an interest, or simply carry on a conversation. It can be done differently: the client leaves an order, after which someone from our team arrives, makes the necessary preparations and leaves, that is, without direct communication with the customer. By the way, our marketer recently introduced gift certificates, thanks to which anyone can now present their loved ones with an unforgettable dinner.

Among our clients there are those who order three full meals a day once or several times a week. But there are also those who have medical restrictions on food intake or simply adhere to a dietary regime. In this case, our colleague can analyze the list of ingredients allowed to the client and prepare excellent dishes from them.

The service, in addition to services to private clients, is engaged in other areas, such as the formation of a recipe database for various forums, blogs, applications, publications, and we also create ready-made menus for corporate customers who are engaged in the culinary field.

A funny thing happened a few months ago. Our Neapolitan Giuseppe worked on the road outside the city, where he served wealthy clients. Everything went according to plan: the tables were laden with dishes, those present were flattered by the abundance of delicacies and the virtuosity of the cook. At the end of the evening, when the customers were filled with nostalgia, the chef was asked to prepare an original Russian dish - solyanka. Unfortunately, in the list of rich Italian cuisine, which our colleague thoroughly studied and successfully put into practice, there was not even a similar word. In slight confusion, he called me, said that he was very uncomfortable in front of the client, and asked me to explain what “hodgepodge” means. We tried our best to outline in detail the instructions for preparing a traditional national dish, which took a lot of time. Nevertheless, Giuseppe coped with the task “perfectly”, surprised the guests and, moreover, took the solyanka recipe into his arsenal.

Internal "kitchen".

The structure of our project can be divided into 3 “departments”:

1. Public relations (or PR, in modern terms), which includes Angelina and Polina. They take on the entire communication load: from dialogue with clients to discussion of interaction with strategic partners.

2. Kitchen and everything connected with it: drawing up an order estimate and purchasing products, the activities of cooks, order processing, field service. Luigi's colleague and I are responsible for all this.

3. Online promotion and commercial development of the project. Levon and Armen are working on this.

All participants in the service, except for me and Armen, have a main place of work, some in a marketing company, some in a restaurant. However, our business is structured in such a way that a constant presence in the office is not required, orders can be processed remotely, work information is exchanged through corporate email and popular instant messengers, and to hold meetings it is enough to meet once or twice a week.

When we receive a call or email from a client, we find out the preferences, the desired level of service and the budget that he is counting on. Next, we decide on the dishes that he has at home, because we will need to cook food in them, and all the necessary equipment must be present.

We usually arrive at a client's home only with kitchen knives. But it also happens that the apartment or house is rented, and the client does not want to bother analyzing everything that is in the kitchen. In such cases, we can take everything we need with us. At the client’s request, we can serve dishes even on plastic plates, which we have already done. We treat such things quite calmly, because the main thing is not the capacity, but the quality of the dishes.

Before the appointed date of the event, we send the client payment receipts, which record the prices for the purchased products. Products are billed separately from our services.

Italian cuisine is in greatest demand and respect among customers. Rack of lamb, risotto, pasta with the addition of various sauces (primarily the classic one - tomato with spices), seafood salads, both fresh and grilled. The services of a chef, when preparing dinner for two, start from 9 thousand rubles, which includes an appetizer or salad, a main course (hot) and a sweet dessert.

A feast for six people costs customers 15-20 thousand rubles, which, from a financial point of view, is much more profitable than visiting an average restaurant.

Our services, of course, are not limited to cooking: people present at the event can communicate with our colleagues, and we also relieve clients from the need to clean the kitchen after the holiday.

Development plans.

In the future, we intend to increase the number of orders to twenty per week, so that the annual turnover reaches four million rubles. To strengthen the image of the service and the quality of services, we want to open an office studio in the coming months, which will allow us to organize shows and master classes, popularize our signature dishes and increase the level of professionalism of our own chefs.