Private Chef · Napa & Sonoma County
A Chef in
Your Own Home
Bespoke seasonal cooking for your home — world cuisine, botanical gastronomy, and the tastes of your guests, set on a table worth lingering at.
The Invitation
Food made especially for you, and for the people gathered around your table.
Every menu begins with you: what you love, what you need, what you’re celebrating, and what the season has given us to cook with. From simple, beautiful comfort food to healing diets, flavors from around the world, and lavish feasts, I create bespoke meals for everyday life and the occasions we remember. Here in Northern California, we are surrounded by the extraordinary bounty of this land: farms and orchards, wine country and coastline, wild mushrooms and just-caught fish, beautiful olive oil, ripe fruit and herbs from the garden. I draw from all of it to create food that is generous, soulful, beautiful, and entirely your own.
The Offerings
Four ways to set the table
I.
In-Home Family Style
A chef in your kitchen and a table set for the people you love. Platters passed hand to hand, second helpings encouraged, nothing precious.
II.
Dinner Parties
Multi-course seasonal menus built around your wines, your guests, your evening. Botanical presentation, candlelight, a room that softens by the second course.
III.
Brunches & Long Lunches
Slow mornings on the terrace — stone fruit, garden herbs, warm breads, something chocolate arriving unannounced.
IV.
Small-Scale Events
Intimate celebrations, retreats, wine-country welcome dinners, showers, vow renewals. Small enough that every plate stays personal.
How I Cook
Botanical gastronomy,
grounded in the season
- —Seasonal and local first — Napa and Sonoma growers, farmstands, and whatever the morning offered
- —World cuisine with a real lineage: Mayan mole, Persian fesenjan, Levantine mezze, Oaxacan salsas, Californian produce
- —Bespoke menus — written around your guests, their wines, their allergies, and their preferences
- —Healthy decadence — abundant, beautiful, and never austere
- —Botanical gastronomy: edible flowers, herb oils, infusions, a plate that looks a little otherworldly
- —Desserts that end the meal on a note of beauty
What Happens at the Table
Grown men have wept
over the mole.
The Mayan mole tacos and the Persian fesenjan have undone more than one guest. Clients in New York, Hawai'i, and California say the same two things: that the food was deeply comforting and somehow still good for them — and that the warmth in the room was the part they remembered longest.
Your Chef
Caitlin Naramore
Caitlin has spent decades at the intersection of sensuality, nourishment, beauty, and devotion — cooking privately for families, hosting a myriad of gatherings, and writing Cake: Her Love Language, a volume of gluten-free, dairy-free, refined-sugar-free desserts.
Her kitchens have been in New York, Hawai'i, and California. Her table is now in wine country, where the season is generous and the growers are neighbors. She cooks the way she gathers: slowly, beautifully, and with the belief that a well made meal is a form of true love and care.
How It Works
01
A Conversation
We talk about the occasion, the guests, the room, and anything the table needs to hold — allergies, preferences, wines, the mood you want.
02
A Menu, Written for You
I build a seasonal menu from what is best that week and send it for your blessing. Nothing arrives on the table you have not already fallen for on paper.
03
The Evening Itself
I arrive, shop, cook, and set everything family style. Where a staff is there to serve, I work with them. Otherwise the platters are passed hand to hand, and your kitchen is left cleaner than I found it.
Based in wine country and available throughout Napa and Sonoma County, with a small number of dates held each season for travel.
For Whom
For the household that would rather be at the table than behind the stove.
For the host with a cellar worth building a menu around.
For the family with specific diets and a chef who listens.
For the celebration small enough to stay personal.
Inquiries
“Tell me the occasion, and I will tell you what the season is offering.”
A small number of dinners are taken each month. Send a note with your date, your address, and the number of guests, and I will write back with a menu.