When a Party Guest Asks for Your Card

Imagine a caterer named Cressida Arbury who cooks for large private parties. In June, the Tollands hire her for Mr. Tolland’s 70th birthday. It is a dinner for 90 in a tent on the lawn of their house in the country. Cressida brings a team of 12. She roasts two whole lambs, and she carves them herself at a station in the tent.

Halfway through dinner, a guest named Mrs. Whitlow comes to the station with her plate. “This is the best lamb I’ve had in years,” she says. “Do you do weddings? My daughter is getting married next June.”

Cressida is pleased. A June wedding for 200 guests would fill her month. She hands the knife to her sous chef and walks Mrs. Whitlow to the edge of the tent. She describes a wedding she cooked last summer, and she offers to come and see the Whitlows’ garden. Mrs. Whitlow asks what a wedding costs. “For 200, about $180 a head,” Cressida says.

They talk for 15 minutes. Guests wait at the station, because the sous chef carves more slowly than Cressida does. From the top table, Mrs. Tolland watches her guests wait for the lamb while her caterer talks to one of them.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Whitlow calls. The wedding needs passed canapés, a seated dinner, and a late supper, so Cressida’s price is $240 a head. “You said $180 at the party,” Mrs. Whitlow says. She books another caterer. In the autumn, a friend asks Mrs. Tolland about her caterer. “The food was lovely,” Mrs. Tolland says. “She spent half of my husband’s birthday selling someone a wedding.” The friend books someone else.

Suppose instead that Cressida keeps carving when Mrs. Whitlow asks. “Thank you. I’d love to hear about the wedding,” she says. She takes a card from her jacket pocket. “Call me any morning this week, and we’ll go through it properly.” Mrs. Whitlow asks what a wedding costs. “It depends on the day you have in mind, so I’d rather tell you on the phone,” Cressida says. Then she serves the next guest. The talk takes less than a minute.

Later that evening, Mrs. Whitlow asks Mrs. Tolland about the caterer. “I haven’t had to think about the food once tonight,” Mrs. Tolland says. On Tuesday, Mrs. Whitlow calls. Cressida asks about the day, the guests, and the garden before she gives a price. The wedding needs passed canapés, a seated dinner, and a late supper, so she quotes $240 a head. Mrs. Whitlow books a tasting. In the autumn, Mrs. Tolland books Cressida for the family’s Christmas party.

Cressida’s lamb was the same both times. In the first version, she took Mrs. Whitlow’s question as the start of a sale. So she sold the wedding at the party. That kept the Tollands’ guests waiting for their lamb, and it cost Mrs. Tolland her evening. It also gave Mrs. Whitlow a price that Cressida could not keep.

In the second version, the question came at the end of the selling. The lamb and the evening had already done it. Cressida gave a card and a sentence, and she left everything else for the call.

So when a guest at a client’s party asks about you, give your card and a sentence. Then go back to work. Here is why the party does the selling, and what three chefs found about the people who ask.

A guest decides about you while you work for someone else

Here is the course’s view of how a party brings a chef the next client. A guest at a party sees more of your work than any sales call could show. They taste the food, and they watch how you treat the host’s guests. They also see whether the evening goes the way the host hoped.

Then the guest often asks the host about you. The host answers from the same evening, and a guest trusts the host’s answer more than anything you say about yourself. So most of the selling is done before the guest says a word to you. Their question comes at the end of it, and a card and a sentence are all it needs.

Anything more spends the host’s evening on your business. The host is paying for your attention to the guests, and the guests can see where it goes. A pitch also turns you from the person who cooked the dinner into someone who wants something from them.

A price is the answer to keep for the call. You do not yet know the guest’s date, how many people are coming, or what the day needs. So any figure is a guess, and a client takes the first price they hear as what your work costs. That is what happened to Cressida’s $180.

A guest may also ask about the host’s household. Keep the household to yourself, and turn the talk back to the food.

A chef cooked on his friends’ yacht, and a guest booked him for the next week

Stefan is a private chef who has cooked for clients in Britain, Spain, and Dubai. In 2025, yhangry, a site that books private chefs, published a profile of him. While he lived in Dubai, he often gave dinner parties for friends at his apartment.

One week, those friends invited him on a yacht trip, and the chef they had hired did not turn up. They asked Stefan to cook instead. “I said, sure, I’ll give it a go. I cooked for 12 people on that yacht. They loved it,” he said.

A guest then asked whether he would cook on another yacht the following week. He agreed, and another booking followed. “I just kept doing it through word of mouth,” he said.

His bookings still come almost entirely through word of mouth, Instagram, and return clients, the profile says. No two of his menus are the same. He tries to learn about each client before the event, sometimes on a video call. For a Polish host, he brought a bottle of rare vodka from Poland that could not be found in British shops. “Anyone can write a guest’s name on a menu,” he said. “I want to give them something they haven’t seen in years. That’s what they’ll tell their friends about.”

The guest on the yacht asked after eating a dinner that Stefan cooked for other people. What brings him the next client, he said, is a story about what he did for a host. In his words, “someone will say, ‘This chef did something amazing for us,’ and that’s what gets me the next client.” So put your effort at a party into the host’s evening, because that evening is what the guests will describe.

A London chef met her first private client at one of her own farm feasts

Philippa Davis is a private chef who once ran a restaurant and café on a city farm behind Canary Wharf, in London. On the food site The Cook’s Cook, she wrote about how she started. Once a month, the café held a farmyard feast in the courtyard overlooking the horse stables.

“It was at one of these events that I met a lady who wanted me to come and cook for her birthday party in her home,” she wrote. “This was my first experience of private cheffing.” Before long, she left the farm, signed on with an agent, and took her first jobs abroad.

When she wrote, she had been a private chef for about five years. In her words, “most of my clients find me by word of mouth, although I still use two excellent agents.”

Measured against this lesson, Davis’s first private client was a guest who had just eaten her food. The feast was her own event, so the evening was hers as well as the question. At a client’s party, only the question is yours. The evening belongs to the host, and so do the guests, so keep your answer short.

A San Diego chef lost a booking, thanked the client anyway, and her mother hired him

Andres Hinojosa is a personal chef in San Diego who hosts The Chefpreneur Podcast. In the notes for a 2018 episode, he told how one client came to him. A woman searched online for “Chefs in San Diego” and asked him to cook for a bachelorette party. He sent her a menu after they spoke on the phone, and she went with another chef.

He sent her a thank-you note anyway. In it, he said how much he appreciated that she had contacted him, and he wished them the best for the party.

Several weeks later, another woman asked him to cook a dinner party for eight of her friends. He asked how she had heard about him. Her daughter, the client from the bachelorette party, had given her his name. He got the job, and the dinner was in a house of 17,000 square feet.

The daughter hired someone else. The last she heard from Hinojosa was a note that thanked her and asked for nothing. Weeks later, she gave her mother his name. So a guest who takes your card and books another caterer can still send you the next client. The course’s suggestion is to thank them once and leave it there, so the last they hear from you asks for nothing.

Why writing to a guest from the host’s list goes wrong

Imagine a private chef named Benedict Linley who cooks a dinner for 40 at the Hollingworths’ townhouse. Two weeks before, Mrs. Hollingworth sends him the guest list. It has each guest’s name, email address, and allergies, for the place cards and the menu.

During dinner, a guest named Mr. Ingram tells a server that he would like the same duck at his firm’s summer party. The server tells Benedict in the kitchen.

On Monday, Benedict is between two jobs. He finds Mr. Ingram’s email address on the guest list and writes to him. “I cooked for the Hollingworths on Saturday, and I hear your firm is planning a summer party. I’d be glad to talk about it.”

Mr. Ingram is surprised to hear from him. At lunch that week, he tells Mrs. Hollingworth that her chef wrote to him. Mrs. Hollingworth realizes that her chef used her guest list to find work. She does not book Benedict for her Christmas dinner, and Mr. Ingram’s firm hires the caterer it used last year.

Benedict was right that Mr. Ingram might want a caterer. His mistake was using the list Mrs. Hollingworth gave him for her party to reach one of her guests. The list was part of her household, like everything else he saw in her house. Mr. Ingram had not asked Benedict for anything, either. He had praised the duck to a server.

The version that works uses the list for the place cards and the allergies, and for nothing else. Benedict tells the server, “If he asks for my card, give him one.” At the end of the evening, Mr. Ingram asks the server for a card, and he calls Benedict the next week. The day after the party, Benedict deletes the list.

Giving a guest your card is not taking the host’s guests

Many chefs feel uneasy handing a card to a client’s guest. It can feel like using the host’s party to find work. It can also feel like taking something from a client who trusted you with her friends.

The guest asked, and a card given with one sentence takes nothing from the evening. Cressida’s took less than a minute, and the Tollands’ guests did not wait for their lamb. What costs the host is the selling. That means the walk to the edge of the tent, the price, and the email from her list.

A household you cook for often may worry that a friend will take its evenings. On a retainer, its evenings are kept for it before anyone else can book them. So a friend’s booking cannot take one.

How to answer a guest who asks about you at a client’s party

1. Before the party, put a few cards in your jacket pocket, and give each of your servers two or three. Keep them off the buffet and the tables. That is the course’s suggestion, because then a card goes only to a guest who asked for one. For example, a server whose guest asks who cooked can say, “Our chef is Hana Corso. Here’s her card.”
2. When a guest asks for your card, thank them, give it, and say when to call. Then go back to work. For example, a chef plating dessert at a client’s anniversary dinner can say, “Thank you, I’m glad you liked it. Call me any day next week.”
3. If the guest asks your price or your dates at the party, give no figure. Say that you will go through both when the guest calls. For example, a caterer can say, “It depends on the day and the numbers, so let’s talk it through when you call.”
4. Use the host’s guest list for the host’s party only. Write to a guest only at the number or address the guest gave you. After the party, delete the list or return it to the host. That is the course’s suggestion, because the list is part of the household you keep to yourself.
5. When a guest from the party calls, ask about their own party before you give a price. Then give your dates and your price. Write the guest a menu of their own, not the host’s, as Stefan does. That is the course’s suggestion, because a host may not want her friends’ dinners to look like hers. For example, a caterer can ask, “What’s the occasion, and who’s coming?”
6. If a guest who took your card books someone else, send one short thank-you, as Hinojosa did, and ask for nothing. For example, a caterer can write, “Thank you for thinking of me for the reunion. I hope it’s a wonderful weekend.”
7. When a guest from a party books you, ask whether you may thank the host. Then thank the host in one sentence, and offer nothing in return. For example, a chef can write, “Thank you for having me at your party in May. The Pargeters have asked me to cook for them.”

Next: You will see how to learn a household’s preferences and occasions once, so the family does not have to repeat itself.