How Much Does a Private Chef Cost in Dorset? (2026 Guide)

A private chef in the UK costs £75 to £150 per person. At The Dorset Chef, the rate is £75 to £100 per person, all-inclusive, with no transport, no staff fees, no service charge and no separate tasting fee. Wedding catering starts at £85pp; private dining at £75pp. The figure on the quote is the figure on the invoice. Below is the full cost picture for hiring a private chef in Dorset and Hampshire in 2026, with ten worked quotes from real recent bookings.

The Headline Numbers

Booking type	Guests	Service style	Per-head	Typical total
Intimate dinner party	2–4	3-course at home	£95–£100pp	£200–£400
Standard dinner party	6–10	3-course with canapés	£85–£95pp	£550–£950
Larger dinner party	12–18	3 or 4-course with canapés	£75–£85pp	£950–£1,500
Tasting menu	6–12	5 or 7-course	£100–£120pp	£700–£1,400
Birthday / milestone	10–30	Canapés + 3-course + dessert station	£85–£100pp	£900–£3,000
Holiday-let dinner	6–14	3-course in a rental kitchen	£85–£95pp	£550–£1,300

Wedding totals sit in a different band (£85–£100pp with a 60-guest cap); the full breakdown is in our companion post on wedding catering cost in Dorset.

What “All-Inclusive” Actually Means

The £75–£100 per-head figure for a private chef covers everything for the food side of the evening. That means:

• Menu planning — a bespoke menu designed around your guests, dietary requirements and the date.
• All ingredients — locally sourced, day-of, from named suppliers (day-boat fish from Parkstone Fisheries, organic vegetables from Four Acre Farm and Sopley Salads, meat from a Fordingbridge butcher, eggs from Stoney Farm Sherborne).
• Preparation and cooking — every course made fresh, in your kitchen, on the night. No reheating, no plate-up of pre-cooked food.
• Full table service — each course served at the right moment, paced to the conversation.
• Crockery, cutlery, napkins, personalised printed menus — table set as you’d find in a fine-dining restaurant.
• Complete kitchen clean-up — surfaces wiped, washing-up done, hob and oven cleaned, bins managed. Kitchen left cleaner than we found it.

What it does not cover: drinks (we can recommend wines but you arrange them), and venue-specific costs for off-grid sites (a marquee with no power needs a generator; we cost that line transparently when it applies).

What Pushes the Private Chef Rate Up or Down

Three things move the per-head price inside the £75–£100 band.

1. Guest count. Per-person cost falls as numbers rise, because prep, transport and equipment are largely fixed. A 4-guest dinner sits near £100pp; an 18-guest dinner with the same menu sits closer to £75pp. The food doesn’t shrink, but the per-person share of the chef’s day does.

2. Number of courses and ingredient choices. A 3-course dinner with seasonal British ingredients lands at £75–£85pp. A 5 or 7-course tasting menu, or a 3-course menu built around premium proteins (lobster, wagyu, Dorset venison, day-boat halibut, native oysters, truffle), pushes the rate to £95–£120pp. The technique and prep time scale with the menu.

3. Format and logistics. A standard 3-course dinner in a fully equipped home kitchen is the cheapest format per head. A canapé reception followed by a sit-down meal, an evening food station added later, or a holiday-let kitchen that needs extra induction or hot-hold equipment all add prep time and so move the rate up by £5–£15pp. Off-grid venues (marquee field-kitchens, beach houses, unconverted barns) carry a transparent venue-logistics line — generator hire, water bowser, equipment hire — quoted up front, never on the day.

UK Private Chef Pricing in Context

A quick sense of where we sit in the national market:

• Budget end (£40–£60pp) — usually a chef cooking from a fixed weekly menu in your home, often a part-time or supplementary service. Limited ingredient flexibility.
• Mid-market (£60–£90pp) — bespoke menu, mid-range ingredients, sometimes with a separate service charge or transport line added on top.
• Premium / boutique (£85–£150pp) — fully bespoke menu, named-supplier ingredients, full table service, all-inclusive pricing. This is where The Dorset Chef sits, at the more transparent end of the band.
• Celebrity / luxury (£200pp+) — Michelin-trained chef, wine pairings included, named-brand ingredients, multi-day events.

Within Dorset, Hampshire and the wider South Coast, £75–£100pp is the realistic boutique private-dining rate for a chef cooking everything from scratch in your home. Anything substantially under £75pp usually means either a fixed-menu service or hidden line items added after the headline number.

Ten Worked 2025 Private Chef Quotes

Names changed; everything else is real.

1. Sandbanks waterside dinner party, 8 guests — 3 courses, scallop and chorizo to start, lamb rack with smoked aubergine, dark chocolate mousse. Total £760 (£95pp). Mid-band; classic Dorset coastal dinner. See private chef in Sandbanks for the dedicated BH13 page.

2. Bournemouth 50th birthday, 16 guests — canapés on arrival, 3 courses, dessert station with petit fours. Total £1,520 (£95pp). Birthdays sit in the upper band; canapés and the dessert finish are why.

3. New Forest holiday cottage, 6 guests — 3 courses with venison from the surrounding estates, mushroom risotto, golden syrup brûlée. Total £570 (£95pp). Holiday-let bookings rarely drop below £95pp for groups under 10.

4. Wimborne anniversary, 4 guests — 5-course tasting menu, Shetland king scallop, lamb loin, lemon tart. Total £440 (£110pp). Tasting menus pull the rate up across all group sizes.

5. Christchurch dinner party, 12 guests — 3 courses with seared tuna, slow-roasted lamb, dark chocolate ganache. Total £1,020 (£85pp). The 12-guest sweet spot — rate down, food up.

6. Poole harbour-view supper, 6 guests — 4 courses centred on day-boat brill, harbour view. Total £630 (£105pp). Premium fish and a fourth course explain the £100+ landing.

7. Studland villa, 10 guests — 3 courses with charred sirloin, evening cheese board. Total £900 (£90pp). Holiday-let mid-band; villa kitchen had everything we needed.

8. Dorchester estate dinner, 18 guests — 3 courses with Dorset venison, root vegetables from the Cranborne Chase, blackberry parfait. Total £1,440 (£80pp). Larger groups in spec’d kitchens land in the £75–£85pp band.

9. Lymington summer dinner, 8 guests — 3 courses with native lobster and Solent crab, English strawberries with crème fraîche sorbet. Total £840 (£105pp). Lobster pushes the per-head up; a smaller group keeps the total contained.

10. Salisbury graduation celebration, 14 guests — canapés + 3 courses with pheasant, root vegetable terrine, pear tarte tatin. Total £1,260 (£90pp). Mid-band celebration with a clear theme.

Across these ten bookings the average per-head landed at £94pp, which is a representative middle of our £75–£100 band for private dining in Dorset and Hampshire.

What’s Not in the Quote (And What Often Is, Elsewhere)

A note on the lines that frequently appear on private-chef quotes from other operators and never appear on ours:

• Transport / mileage — included for anywhere within roughly 90 minutes’ drive of Bournemouth. Further afield we agree mileage in advance, not after the fact.
• Service charge — there isn’t one. The headline per-head includes full table service.
• Staff fees — included. For larger dinners we bring service staff at our cost, not yours.
• Tasting fees — wedding bookings include a complimentary tasting; private dining doesn’t need one because we adjust to your feedback in conversation before the menu is locked.
• Equipment hire — included for any normal kitchen; only off-grid sites carry a transparent equipment line, agreed up front.
• Booking fee — none. A £100 deposit secures the date and goes against your final balance.

When to Book and How Long the Booking Process Takes

For a Dorset or Hampshire dinner party, 2–4 weeks ahead is ideal, especially for weekend dates and the summer months in Sandbanks and the New Forest. We can sometimes accommodate shorter notice — it is always worth asking. For weddings and larger events, 3–6 months ahead gives the best availability.

The booking conversation usually takes a single short email exchange: date, rough guest count, location, the feel of the evening, any dietary requirements you already know about. We come back within 24 hours with a menu suggestion and a clear quote. If both work for you, a £100 deposit secures the date.

Is a Private Chef Worth It?

That is a question we cover in more depth in Is a private chef worth it? An honest answer, but the short version: for a milestone evening — a significant birthday, an anniversary, a small family wedding, a once-a-year holiday-let dinner — the all-in £75–£100pp lands a couple of pounds below the same evening at a comparable restaurant once you factor in drinks, transport, time pressure and the cost of getting back home. The upgrade is the room, the company and the kitchen, none of which a restaurant gives you.

Next Steps

• Browse our full pricing page for the headline rates, what’s included by tier, and the FAQ.
• See boutique wedding catering across Dorset and Hampshire for the wedding-specific breakdown.
• Read how to hire a private chef for the booking process step-by-step.
• Or send us the details — date, rough guest count, location, the feel of the evening. We come back within 24 hours with a menu suggestion and a clear quote.

We are based in Bournemouth and cook across Dorset and Hampshire — from Poole and Sandbanks through to the New Forest, Lymington, Winchester and Salisbury. Anywhere within roughly 90 minutes’ drive is straightforward, with no transport charge added to your quote.