A small company,
built for the long table.
Lighthearted Kitchen is a vetted network of private chefs in 18 US cities. Founded 2022. Forty-two chefs. Eight people on staff. We match hosts with chefs, take a small fee, and stay out of the kitchen.
An idea worth a longer story.
Lighthearted Kitchen began at a long table on a Tuesday in 2022, when our founder hosted a dinner cooked by a friend — a former restaurant chef looking for a way out of restaurants and into something quieter. The night was small. Eight people. Four hours. Nobody wanted to leave.
Two things were obvious by the end of it. First: there were a lot more cooks like our friend than there was a clean way for anyone to find them. Second: the existing options for hosts — staffing agencies, catering companies, friend-of-a-friend referrals — were all built around the wrong question. They were sourcing labor. We wanted to source a relationship.
So we built the network we wished existed. Vetted. Trained. Insured. Small enough to stay accountable to every host and every chef. Slow enough to grow on the strength of the work, not on ad spend.
Three years later, the model holds.
Eight of us, in three cities.
Caroline Vance
Founder & CEO. Former restaurant operator. Hudson, NY.
Marcus Park
Head of Chef Network. Runs the course and the in-home dinners. Brooklyn, NY.
Iris Chen
Head of Host Experience. The voice on the other end of every inquiry. Brooklyn, NY.
Daniel Vega
Head of Trust & Safety. Vetting, insurance, contracts. Austin, TX.
Hana Yoshida
Design & Brand. Hudson, NY.
Sam Avery
Operations. Invoices, scheduling, the small things that hold up the rest. Brooklyn, NY.