Viva Chefs 101: Redefining dinners with our in-home personal chefs
Imagine coming home to the smell of fresh, home-cooked food made just for you—all without lifting a finger in the kitchen. At Viva Chefs, we’re redefining how families eat dinner with our affordable, in-home personal chefs who make meals a breeze.
I am Ravi Yatnalkar, co-founder and CEO of Viva Chefs. Sixteen years ago, my journey toward the American dream started as a hardware engineer, but every few years, I kept getting pulled towards my true passion—food. Growing up in India, my family owned a food catering business, instilling in me a profound love for food.
Throughout my time in the U.S., from graduate school to my years on the East Coast and later while working at Amazon in the San Francisco Bay Area, a persistent question kept coming up among friends and family: “What if we had access to affordable, healthy meals prepared right in our kitchen, like it was back home in India?” This need became crystal clear when my wife and I had our baby during the pandemic.
Around the same time, my dear friend and now co-founder at Viva Chefs, Vaibhav, was struggling with his mom undergoing a quintuple bypass surgery. He had tried all the ‘healthy’ food delivery, meal prep, and meal kit services easily available, but none of them provided the customization required in this delicate situation without costing a fortune. One day, he texted me on WhatsApp: finding an ‘in-home cook’ really needs to be a marketplace, where both the chefs and customers can find each other easily—we should just start one. My response? “Let’s do it!” And this is how Viva Chefs was born.
For the first nine months of 2024, we operated as ‘Chefs and Home,’ functioning like an agency of sorts. We onboarded 40 cooks who cooked 16,000 meals to over 150 families. We spent hundreds of hours talking to our customers and learning how everyone had different approaches to meal prep. Finally, we understood this domain well enough to launch Viva Chefs (app now available on iOS and Android)—a first-of-its-kind marketplace to find local cooks and chefs for the most customized meal prep you’ll ever find.
At Viva Chefs, we simplify the process of finding a local cook. For as little as $65 per visit, our cooks prepare up to four dinners for a small family, right in your own kitchen using the ingredients you provide. Don’t worry, we will send you a grocery list so that you know exactly what and how much to buy! (Read about how it works here) This service not only saves time and money but also ensures transparency in the food you eat. We are super excited to get started and turn this into a revolution.
Check out some of our cooks here!