Nairobi News

She flips steak in a pan with suave, her chopping of tomatoes depicts someone who’s mastered the art.

Twenty six year old Sheena Amario is a personal chef, she comes through for those who are too busy to make themselves a good meal or those who do not know their way round the kitchen.

As such, she visits her client’s home, cooks food to last the client for a week. She stocks the different dishes in the fridge and all the client does in the evening after coming from work is to heat the food and eat.

It is the job that puts food on her table for two years now and surprisingly she faces no competition in the market, or rather, none she is aware of. On a good month, Sheena makes a net income of Sh60,000.

Trained at Top Chef Culinary School in Westlands Nairobi, Sheena makes money out of a passion she nurtured since she was young.

Born in Kenya but later moved to Tanzania and then Uganda for studies, the exposure to versatility of foods also sharpened her culinary skills.

“Moving to different countries, you come to learn that you can use wine and vinegar in food, you learn how different countries prepare and cook their food differently,” Sheena told Nairobi News.

She took her internship at The Sankara Hotel Nairobi and another six months at Ole Sereni Hotel in Nairobi.

“These five star hotels taught me a lot on making different dishes, international and local recipes, pastry, baking, grilling, roasting, pan-frying, dressing and so many aspects of making cold dishes like sandwiches,” Sheena told Nairobi News in an interview.

FIRST CLIENT

She opted out of the mainstreaming working in hotels due to the monotony of routine.

“Doing the same thing for years before one is promoted in their work place, limits your skills as you do not practice anything else,” she said.

Her first client was a lady from Australian who was visiting the country. Apparently, Google search engine lists her as the only personal chef in Kenya. So the Australian was directed to her Facebook page – SheenasKitchen and contacted her. Sheena cooked for her in her entire stay here in Kenya.

“The exposure of Sankara and Ole Sereni helped me in finding out what kind of dishes appealed to the Australian nationality,” she says.

Apart from offering cooking services at people’s homes, Sheena trains house helps and housewives, she also offers cooking classes. So far she has trained five house helps and three house wives.

Her minimum charge is Sh1,000 for a one hour training session. The clients provide the cooking ingredients, and her cab fare to the client’s house. Most will require like a week’s training.

One contacts her through an email, which she responds by sending them her menu, they which if the client likes they pay an upfront fee of Sh500 commitment charge.

Cooking for a family of two for one week’s meals will cost you Sh5000 that figure excludes the ingredients and her transport cost.

COOKING CLASSES

Sheena buys the ingredients in a super market for easier receipting and later reimbursements from her client.

If the client is far away, like the Eastlands part of Nairobi, she prefers referring the client to her colleague chefs, mostly the ones she went to school with.

She has also been contacted by Bio Food Product, a Nairobi based company that manufactures yoghurt. She was sourced to show customers other things one can do with yoghurt apart from just taking it.

So in an expo held last year at KICC, Sheena was stationed at their tent, demonstrating how to make smoothies, how to blend yoghurt for breakfast, and mixing it with food among other ways.

Sheena also conducts cooking classes at her kitchen in Riverside Nairobi.

She is looking into expanding into deliveries, that way she can reach more customers and make more money.

For six months she did deliveries to an office in Westlands with 30 staff. She sold each plate for Sh310 for a piece of meat, two starches, vegetable and a fruit.

For anyone interested in doing what she does, she advises that one needs passion for the job.

The job has few risks and the start-up capital is not much. One requires reliable internet as you will contact clients through emails, updating your website and other social media pages.