Private Chef - Italian-Inspired Vegan Fare

Veronika S.

03 Jul 2023

Wow my friends have been telling me to try Cozymeal, hopefully this is isolated to Palm Springs but STAY AWAY FROM THEM AND CHEF JESUS. Jesus (doesn't deserve the chef moniker) was supposed to be providing a cooking with friends experience. Spoiler Alert! It did NOT happen. To start this off leading up to the event he tried to switch the time and date multiple times but we had a fixed time and date we needed. Eventually we agreed to push up the event by two hours as an accommodation for him but at the new time agreed upon he didn't even show up we had to call him and he said sorry about that but he would be providing a private chef situation as a treat for my sisters birthday and arrived instead at the original time. When he arrived he was complaining about my sisters peanut allergy and how it was so hard. I realize now he was doing this because he was trying to make excuses for changing a menu for no reason. Nothing in the menu needed to be changed except changing the type of oil needed. He said ladies I want you to "relax" and I will cook for you. He NEEDED to say this because what he was about to serve us was a bunch of premade frozen foods from the bargain aisle of Albertsons. No joke. More on that later. So we say fine and jump into a game of charades. My sisters microwave has a sticky button and if you are unfamiliar with how to press it you can't open it. we all heard him fumble with the microwave and then give up deciding to fry up the frozen egg rolls he was going to serve us. When the egg rolls are served he plops some condiments and says here you go. There's like 30 egg rolls some of which are cold on the inside. In my mind that's near confirmation that they are frozen. Next up the main course. It was supposed to be sea bass but instead it was rockfish. Like for real bro?? This experience was expensive and you serve rock fish? It's rude. And the rock fish was literally just sautéed with a bunch of pepper. It was inedible. I did not eat it. The side was rice well actually it was supposed to be a jook but I personally don't think he knows what that is. It was both mushy and crunchy clearly Jesus can't ascertain portion size. Last up was mochi. I mean it was just like mango mochi from the frozen section. Which I mean is alright but the original menu was for us to have black sesame ice cream so that's just so different. For $130 a person this "meal" was not acceptable. So we told Jesus and he vowed to make it right. We said okay and he left. We went through the trash and suspicions were confirmed. Discounted egg rolls from the frozen food aisle and rock fish $20 for the party. This guy is not a chef he's a reheating technician. The one thing that required chef skills was butchered so bad I couldn't eat it and was left hungry and bewildered. So surely when we message Cozymeals about this they will refund us right? Nope! They said he had to change the menu because of the peanut allergy. But does that mean you have to downgrade the protein and serve us frozen foods too? Jesus tried to say that we were intoxicated and that's why we couldn't do the cooking experience we hadn't had a drink prior to his arrival but how could we do any experience when it's all FROZEN. would he have been getting advice on how many seconds you need to put the egg rolls in the microwave?? Like be for real. Jesus is a scammer. And evidently cozymeals is eating it up lmaooooo Get this his new menu is based off all the frozen stuff he made for us so I guess he is covering his bases with his swindle projects he plans to continue. So just keep in mind it seems cozy meals is fine charging you $130 a person to eat Super Bowl snacks.

Ali R.

26 Jun 2023

I hate to write negative reviews but I must say this was probably the worst dining experience I have ever had considering the cost of the meal and the wild discrepancy between the service we purchased and the service that was provided. Jesus seems like a pretty nice guy who is just trying to make a living and while I can appreciate and empathize with that situation it's not acceptable to offer a service you have no intention of following through on. My sister-in-law and our group planned to have a great experience and a nice meal for her birthday celebration and instead, we were just completely scammed. Jesus called to change the time of the event several times leading up to it and my sister in law explained that we would be as flexible as possible but had limitations on changing the date due to everyone traveling from out of town for this experience as well as other activities we had planned for the weekend. Eventually, it was decided we would move the dinner up an hour and a half which we agreed to reluctantly. The issue was that we had purchased day spa passes and this change would now require us to leave the spa earlier than the time we purchased which was a bummer but we really wanted to have a nice dinner so we went ahead and accommodated the schedule changes and decided to skip our planned lunch since we would be having an early dinner. At this point, we all are ready at the house awaiting the chef's arrival when suddenly he calls to say that he won't be coming at the newly agreed upon time but will instead just come at the originally scheduled time. Well okay, that sucks cause we are now super hungry and skipped lunch and left our experience early only to end up doing nothing for 2 hours while we waited. This was pretty upsetting but we agreed to shrug it off and begin the experience without dwelling on this mishap. Jesus shows up and begins cooking an entirely different menu than what we had arranged and also notifies us that instead of doing the cooking class he would go ahead and just prepare everything for us while we relaxed. We were bummed cause we actually wanted to do the class but at this point didn't have much of a choice and figured maybe it would be nice for us to just play charades and relax with a drink while he prepared the meal. Finally, the chef brings over our appetizers which went from spring rolls to vegetable egg rolls (not really a huge change to be fair so we are fine with it) he brings out 3 huge plates of these things and right from that moment I'm thinking hmm that's kinda odd for a 4 course plated menu. It was really giving SuperBowl party but we are all super hungry and so we just decide to dive in. I ask if there was a dipping sauce prepared and no joke he hands us a bottle of soy sauce and a bottle of spicy mayo for the table. Like literally just hand us the bottles. At this point, Im thinking uh oh... We eat the egg rolls and immediately I realize these are frozen egg rolls. Like this guy really just bought a bag of frozen egg rolls popped them in the oven presented them to us with some condiments and felt like that was completely acceptable... I'm kind of in disbelief at this point. Then comes the "sea bass" which immediately once served I can visually see is not sea bass at all but is actually looking like a tilapia or some other white fish for which it wasn't even attempted to disguise. We tell him this is not sea bass and he tells us this story about how he initially acts shocked like he didn't realize it wasn't sea bass (how does a chef who offers a menu including sea bass not know what sea bass looks like) he then says he was rushing and the seafood dept actually gave him the wrong fish. I was like you ordered sea bass and they gave you rockfish? That's a pretty big mistake damn. Then we can't even eat it cause I mean it's rockfish which is just riddled with bones when prepared in the way he chose. I mean fish has bones I get it but there are ways to prepare different types of fish that are appropriate. The rice was a mix of overcooked and undercooked which seems like it would be impossible to achieve but somehow he did it. At this point, we just tell him look Jesus we're sorry to have to tell you this but honestly, this is not really acceptable. none of us can even eat the meal. He brings dessert which is a mango mochi (supposed to be a black sesame ice cream) and it's literally just store-bought mochi that he cut up. When I say that these were premade frozen foods (with the exception of the fish) I am not just speculating cause he actually threw out the boxes for everything in our trash. We confirmed once he left that he did in fact just heat up frozen egg rolls and sliced up some mochi. I wouldn't be so offended if we hadn't spent 130 per plate on this experience but if I am paying for someone to teach me how to cook a sea bass I think it's only fair that they know what sea bass is and make the most basic effort of ensuring the ingredients they bring are inspected. I mean if he had knocked it out of the park with the rockfish I would gladly accept the meal cause wow the skill required would have been undeniable but the reality is that I suspect Chef Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and just thought we wouldn't notice. Another bummer is we ended up having to spend a ton more money to get a last-minute alternative. The crazy part is that I am genuinely wondering who else this guy has done this to.. So as much as I hate to have to say it. This was a terrible experience and I had to be honest in my review because I don't want other people who save up to have a good experience to end up in this situation.

Ali R.

26 Jun 2023

I hate to write negative reviews but I must say this was probably the worst dining experience I have ever had considering the cost of the meal and the wild discrepancy between the service we purchased and the service that was provided. Jesus seems like a pretty nice guy who is just trying to make a living and while I can appreciate and empathize with that situation it's not acceptable to offer a service you have no intention of following through on. My sister-in-law and our group planned to have a great experience and a nice meal for her birthday celebration and instead, we were just completely scammed. Jesus called to change the time of the event several times leading up to it and my sister in law explained that we would be as flexible as possible but had limitations on changing the date due to everyone traveling from out of town for this experience as well as other activities we had planned for the weekend. Eventually, it was decided we would move the dinner up an hour and a half which we agreed to reluctantly. The issue was that we had purchased day spa passes and this change would now require us to leave the spa earlier than the time we purchased which was a bummer but we really wanted to have a nice dinner so we went ahead and accommodated the schedule changes and decided to skip our planned lunch since we would be having an early dinner. At this point, we all are ready at the house awaiting the chef's arrival when suddenly he calls to say that he won't be coming at the newly agreed upon time but will instead just come at the originally scheduled time. Well okay, that sucks cause we are now super hungry and skipped lunch and left our experience early only to end up doing nothing for 2 hours while we waited. This was pretty upsetting but we agreed to shrug it off and begin the experience without dwelling on this mishap. Jesus shows up and begins cooking an entirely different menu than what we had arranged and also notifies us that instead of doing the cooking class he would go ahead and just prepare everything for us while we relaxed. We were bummed cause we actually wanted to do the class but at this point didn't have much of a choice and figured maybe it would be nice for us to just play charades and relax with a drink while he prepared the meal. Finally, the chef brings over our appetizers which went from spring rolls to vegetable egg rolls (not really a huge change to be fair so we are fine with it) he brings out 3 huge plates of these things and right from that moment I'm thinking hmm that's kinda odd for a 4 course plated menu. It was really giving SuperBowl party but we are all super hungry and so we just decide to dive in. I ask if there was a dipping sauce prepared and no joke he hands us a bottle of soy sauce and a bottle of spicy mayo for the table. Like literally just hand us the bottles. At this point, Im thinking uh oh... We eat the egg rolls and immediately I realize these are frozen egg rolls. Like this guy really just bought a bag of frozen egg rolls popped them in the oven presented them to us with some condiments and felt like that was completely acceptable... I'm kind of in disbelief at this point. Then comes the "sea bass" which immediately once served I can visually see is not sea bass at all but is actually looking like a tilapia or some other white fish for which it wasn't even attempted to disguise. We tell him this is not sea bass and he tells us this story about how he initially acts shocked like he didn't realize it wasn't sea bass (how does a chef who offers a menu including sea bass not know what sea bass looks like) he then says he was rushing and the seafood dept actually gave him the wrong fish. I was like you ordered sea bass and they gave you rockfish? That's a pretty big mistake damn. Then we can't even eat it cause I mean it's rockfish which is just riddled with bones when prepared in the way he chose. I mean fish has bones I get it but there are ways to prepare different types of fish that are appropriate. The rice was a mix of overcooked and undercooked which seems like it would be impossible to achieve but somehow he did it. At this point, we just tell him look Jesus we're sorry to have to tell you this but honestly, this is not really acceptable. none of us can even eat the meal. He brings dessert which is a mango mochi (supposed to be a black sesame ice cream) and it's literally just store-bought mochi that he cut up. When I say that these were premade frozen foods (with the exception of the fish) I am not just speculating cause he actually threw out the boxes for everything in our trash. We confirmed once he left that he did in fact just heat up frozen egg rolls and sliced up some mochi. I wouldn't be so offended if we hadn't spent 130 per plate on this experience but if I am paying for someone to teach me how to cook a sea bass I think it's only fair that they know what sea bass is and make the most basic effort of ensuring the ingredients they bring are inspected. I mean if he had knocked it out of the park with the rockfish I would gladly accept the meal cause wow the skill required would have been undeniable but the reality is that I suspect Chef Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and just thought we wouldn't notice. Another bummer is we ended up having to spend a ton more money to get a last-minute alternative. The crazy part is that I am genuinely wondering who else this guy has done this to.. So as much as I hate to have to say it. This was a terrible experience and I had to be honest in my review because I don't want other people who save up to have a good experience to end up in this situation.