The entire experience did not meet our expectations. Chef Anthony showed up 45 minutes late and blamed the Lyft driver/app for having the wrong address and getting lost. Immediately after coming into our house, he dropped a bottle of balsamic vinegar which shattered all over our kitchen floor leaving glass and damaging the walls and woodwork. Balsamic vinegar was not even needed since it wasn't on the menu. Chef Anthony's first thought was to take off his shoes so that he didn't make a further mess. Meanwhile my fiancée and I cleaned up the mess and vacuumed up the glass the best we could.
Shortly after this debacle Anthony made the unsolicited comment that "women shouldn't be in the kitchen", a subtle implication that men are better than women at cooking. We did not appreciate this remark, but moved on to the meal. Anthony proceeded to spend the next 3 hours using every possible frying pan, sauce pan, mixing bowl, and kitchen utensil we had available and making even more of a mess of our kitchen and floors. He had no regard for our personal property: he used a dish towel to grab an oily pan from the oven, when we had oven mitts in plain sight next to the stove, he spilled food on my bluetooth speaker, he spilled and dripped food on the floor, he spilled food in the oven because he didn't use oven mitts. We spent over two hours cleaning up the kitchen after he was done. Since we have a dog, we are very careful with making sure he doesn't get into anything that is toxic to them such as onions, shallots, and garlic. We mentioned this to Chef Anthony, but we still had to pick up shallots and garlic from our kitchen floor.
At 10:45, nearly 4 hours into the experience which had a scheduled end time of 10pm, we still had not started cooking the chicken or the vegetables, the main courses of the night. I took a few pictures of the mess at this point, having lost my patience.
Eventually about 11:45, nearly 5 hours into the night, we started eating. By this point, I was completely exhausted and simply wanted the chef to leave our home. He asked us to help him clean up which I spent the next 45 minutes cleaning while he spent 30 minutes waiting for his ride to show up.
Food: 2/5 stars. The food was lackluster at best. The chicken was rushed and improperly seasoned, the chef made mistakes in the order of coating the chicken. Two of the four chicken breasts were not done cooking at 11:45 because they were so thick. The soup recipe was changed at the last minute to a cold cherry soup which was gritty and the chef blamed our brand new ninja blender for not pureeing it finely enough. The vegetables did not roast thoroughly enough since they weren't put into the oven until after 11pm after I reminded the chef about them. The flourless cake was overcooked because the chef forgot about the cake and overcooked it. He told us that he "never uses a kitchen timer" after overcooking the cake. The ice cream was the only positive part of the meal, which turned out well, although Chef Anthony asked me scrape out his ice cream maker for him during the clean up process.
Sanitation/Cleanliness: 0/5 stars. Chef Anthony touched raw chicken several times without washing afterwards and then touched other food and utensils of ours. Chef Anthony used our spoon to taste a sauce, then held up the same spoon to my fiancée to try. She was disgusted and got her own spoon. We had to use the following to clean up after Chef Anthony: 5+ Swiffer sheets worth of mopping, over a full roll of paper towels, Clorox wipes, two rounds of vacuuming, cleaning and degreasing the oven, cleaning my bluetooth speaker, and sweeping up all the crumbs and food particles he dropped.
Professionalism/Teaching: 0/5 stars. Chef Anthony showed up late and his "class" took nearly 5 hours to complete. He left our house at 12:35, when the event was scheduled from 7pm-10pm. While Chef Anthony was able to sprinkle in some knowledge of cooking techniques, he had no specific plan for the night or clear structure to the meal preparation. He often asked us to grab something and then we didn't use it such as our hand mixer. He seemed to expect us to have every possible kind of mixing bowl, pan, and stand mixer. He kept asking us to drink more and at three different times said "I think your wife needs a shot of whiskey".
These are just some of the ridiculous things he told us, trust me there's a lot more: "Women shouldn't be in the kitchen", "I never use a kitchen timer", "You don't need a meat thermometer", "I'm not cut out for modern kitchen tools" - after not being able to work the blender and not being able to open a tupperware container, and after not being able to turn on our gas stove.
I could go on and on describing in further detail how much of a disaster this was. At this point, I just want a refund and to forget the whole experience. Chef Anthony seems like he has a good heart, but he is simply not cut out to teach others to cook in their home. He showed no respect for our home, our property, or our time. He insulted us several times and turned what was described as an "elegant, yet low cost and quick and easy to prepare" meal into a 5 and half hour nightmare.
