Private chef · Catering · Cooking lessons · Buffalo, NY
With a menu custom built for you by Chef Michael, with your culinary aspirations in mind! 716 Kitchen Skills provides In-Home Cooking Classes, Private chef services and small event catering to the Western New York Area with 25+ years of experience, dedication, creativity & perfect execution!
Two ways to work with us
Private chef & catering
A menu built around your evening, shopped for, cooked in your kitchen and put in front of your guests — while you sit down with them. Dinner parties, holidays, milestone birthdays, date nights that deserve more than a reservation.
Cooking lessons
The original service, and still going. You choose the dish, we plan it, shop for it and teach it hands-on at your own stove — on the equipment you already own, so nothing has to be re-learned afterwards.
The idea
“Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.” Auguste Escoffier
Going out is easy. But the food you eat out gets made on someone else’s range, from a menu someone else picked, in a room you have to drive home from.
716 Kitchen Skills works the other way around. You pick the food. You pick the night. It happens at your island, on your stove — and you never have to leave the house.
Private chef & catering
You plan a night for the people you like most, then spend it at the stove with your back to the room. A private chef fixes that one problem — the menu is built with you, the shopping is done, and the food comes out when it should while you sit down with your guests.
Cooking lessons
From the first email to the last plate, the only part you have to do is show up in your own kitchen. $350 for one to four learners, about three hours.
Tell us what you want to learn. The menu, date and time get settled here, at least one full week before the lesson. It costs nothing.
Chef Michael writes the lesson, builds the recipes around your menu and does the grocery run — all inside the lesson fee. You pay for the food itself.
Roughly three hours, hands-on, in your kitchen. Technique first, then the dish — then you sit down and eat it. You keep the recipes.
The food
Student achievements
Our own students — named, with the menus they actually cooked.
Lisa Marinelli
Lisa wanted to own her grill. We wrote her a personal BBQ sauce recipe — and taught her how to change it up however she wants.
Mary Beth Zangi & friends
Mary Beth had friends over for a grilling and home-made Greek food lesson. Mise en place set up before anyone arrived — and pre-lesson snacks, because we can always arrange those.
Alyssa V. & Sarah M.
Seasoned well in advance, seared, then braised low and slow — and a glaze built from the braising liquid they cooked in. Tender and delicious.
Your chef
After a long career in food service, and in education, this Buffalo-born Chef can cook an amazing meal for you and your guests, or teach everyone how it’s done with a hands-on experience!
Technique, timing, heat control, knowledge & experience… Great cooking requires that you bring all of these attributes together. After 25+ years in the hospitality industry, Chef Michael is prepared to teach you everything you need to know, along with a handful of tips, tricks, habits and industry secrets that can take your culinary skills to the next level and beyond!
BBB Accredited BusinessAccredited with the Better Business Bureau of Upstate New York. Read our BBB reviews
Gift cards
A private chef dinner or a cooking lesson in their own kitchen — for birthdays, anniversaries, the holidays, or the person who already has everything.
Before you book
Yes — that is the whole idea, for both services. Chef Michael cooks in your kitchen, or teaches you in it, on the equipment you already own.
Both, and these days more of the former. A private chef evening means the menu is built with you, shopped for, cooked in your kitchen and served to your guests while you sit down with them. A lesson means you cook it and we teach you how. Some people book one and come back for the other.
It is quoted per menu, because a four-course dinner for six and a standing room of forty are not the same job. You get a written menu and a price for it before you commit to anything, and the consultation that gets you there is free. Cooking lessons do have a flat rate — $350 for one to four learners.
Before anything is booked you and the chef talk through what you want to learn, who is joining, and what you would like to eat. The menu, the date and the time all get settled there. The consultation is free and has to happen at least one full week before the class.
We do. Shopping is part of the lesson fee — the chef sources everything and arrives with it. Food itself is billed separately at cost, and we can work out a rough grocery estimate on the consultation or any time before the lesson.
About three hours on average. Longer lessons are absolutely fine and can be arranged on the consultation — they may carry an additional fee depending on what you want to cook.
The 350-dollar rate covers one to four learners. Each additional person after the first four is $75. Couples, families, friends and small groups all work — some of our best nights have been six people around one island.
No. We teach restaurant-quality food using what is already in your kitchen. If a piece of kit would genuinely change what you can cook, the chef will tell you what to look for — he will not sell you anything.
Buffalo and Western New York — the city, the Northtowns and the Southtowns. If you are outside the usual radius, ask; it is often still workable.
It is one of the most common reasons people call: birthdays, anniversaries, a milestone, or a night in for someone who has everything. Gift cards are available on the gift card page, or mention it on the consultation and the chef will build the menu around the occasion.
Buffalo & Western New York
A dinner party, a holiday, or a technique you’ve never trusted yourself with. The consultation is free either way.