Chef Craig

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PRIVATE CHEF SERVICES

If you still would like that restaurant experience without having to go to a restaurant, you can still book me to come to your home.

From Personal Chef Services to Private Catering and Corporate Catering

Chef Craig designs personalized culinary experiences for you and your guests. Whatever the occasion, from a wedding or a milestone birthday celebration, a cocktail party, a special anniversary, graduation party, casual office gatherings to large-scale VIP event, Chef Craig will design a custom menu just for you.

Chef Craig draws on a lifetime of skills and the knowledge that all meals, no matter how large or how small, are special events among family and friends.

The Practical Chef is a completely personalized private chef and catering services that consistently prepares the best homemade fresh food. We take care of menu planning, grocery shopping, cooking and clean up, leaving you with delicious meals and a spotless kitchen. Take a break from restaurants, fast food and take-out!

From comfort to gourmet food, from healthy low fat and carbs to the most decadent of cuisines, each meal is thoughtfully and carefully prepared, based on your tastes and nutritional needs.

Chef Craig is a graduate from the Culinary Institute of America and Certified Executive Chef. Chef Craig brings over 30 years of experience to the art of cooking working as as a Chef in New York City and Arizona.

Chef Craig has cooked for such celebrities as Jack Welch, Donald Trump, Jackie O, Margaret Thatcher, Muhammad Ali, Jamie Lee Curtis, Telly Savalis & Peter Falk, David Yurman & Koelle Simpson

Need a great gift idea? Give a Practical Chef gift certificate. We will arrive at your recipient’s home and cook a gourmet meal complete with wait staff and clean up

Yelp Reviews

  Craig is a true professional that you can trust. He takes pride in his work and will go above and beyond to make sure your event exceeds your expectation and impresses your guests.

I hired Craig and his team to cater my wedding, which took place at a remote venue about 2 hours outside of Tucson. The event was a challenge because not only was it remote, but I was also planning the event from the other side of the country. That meant I didn't have the benefit of meeting with caterers in person, trying food in advance, and undertaking all the traditional steps of finding vendors for a wedding.

I knew I had found the right person to handle the event from the very first call. He was cordial, asked the right questions, clearly communicated his requirements, and was honest. He didn't disappear or go radio silent after I signed the contract and he was communicative all the way through the planning process and leading up to the event.

About two months before the event, he graciously drove the two hours out to the venue to conduct a property walk-through with me when I was in town for the holidays. He refused additional reimbursement for his time or gas money to get out to the venue.

In the last month leading up to the event, I communicated to Craig that a few of my guests had some allergies, and one was vegan. This was a quaint wedding of only about 20 people, so that meant coming up with some original alternatives for those few individuals. Furthermore, I hired him to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day of the wedding, which exasperated those challenges. On the day of the event, he had a custom vegan-friendly dish prepared for all three meals and took extraordinary precautions to prevent allergen cross-contamination.

Every single meal was punctual, artfully presented, and delicious. This is not your standard wedding food or copy-and-paste banquet meal. Craig is extraordinarily talented and was continuously present throughout each meal to greet guests and present his dishes. Every guest was impressed and raving about the food.

In addition to the tremendous food, Craig also helped to arrange servers for the event and even helped bring additional tables for the event.

Craig is just a genuinely good person and you cannot do better than hiring him for your next event.

Austin A.
3/12/2022

  Craig is fantastic. Incredibly versatile - we worked together on some fairly high pressure corporate events with some high maintenance, perfectionist and picky executives. He never flinched, not even once, even though I tossed him some wacky curveballs from time to time.
He never even showed that he was stressed - a consummate professional and one of my favorite vendors to work with.

Everything Craig has ever done for me has come out fantastic and gets rave reviews.

Highly, highly recommend.

Heather W.
1/02/2020

  Big praise for The Practical Chef! Our whole family (14) was visiting Tucson over the weekend and my brother hired him for a family party last night and it was fantastic! Every detail was covered from set up to clean up - and the FOOD! WOW...the food was simply perfect...from appetizers to dessert. We're all still talking about it today and will be for a long time to come for sure. We are from Seattle so all arrangements were made over phone/email, and every detail was as expected and better.
Highly recommend Chef Craig and his fabulous sous chef!!

Ann K.
11/14/2016

  Craig catered my daughter's baby shower and he did a spectacular job! All the food was delicious. We had several appetizers passed around and then a great variety of main dishes. In addition, Craig took care of all the cleanup. Altogether, he helped make it a perfect event!

Leasa C.
7/09/2016

  I googled "personal chef tucson" to find someone as a Christmas gift for my Mom and her boyfriend and found Chef Craig. We emailed, got it set up. You never know what you're going to get on the internet... Craig & Sous Chef Mike did the dinner for mom & 6 guests. When she called the next day she couldn't stop gushing. "Unbelievable" she said. The food was better than she's had in the top restaurants in Tucson, Craig and Mike were both friendly and professional at the same time, the whole experience was, as she put it, "just tops". By the end of the night Mom's guests were impressed, happy, and full. So this seems like a "home run" to me. Thanks Craig! You've given Mom something to talk about for years. P.S. I'd say the whole thing was very reasonably priced, especially for what they got.

RV A.
3/07/2016

  Chef Craig is outstanding! I recently had the pleasure of being a weekend guest at a ranch with 7 couples where Chef Craig cooked all of the food. Every meal was spectacular. He is a really nice congenial guy - and catered to a lot of specific requests in a charming fashion. He was in the kitchen all day everyday - never took a break. He made homemade soups for lunch which were to die for. For the most part the menu was what I would call southwestern gourmet - but that is what was selected. I am sure he could cook anything well. I wish he lived in Chicago!

CYNTHIA P.
12/18/2015

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