The house
Can you hire a private chef for a villa in Los Cabos?
Yes, and it is the easiest booking of the trip. What the kitchen has to have, what to ask the rental manager first, and how a night runs whether the house sleeps six or thirty.
Still choosing the house
Most rentals on this coast already work. The chefs here cook in villas, condos, beach houses and the occasional boat, and the kitchen is rarely what decides it.
Look at two things in the listing photos. The first is the table. Sandra’s Family Style menu parks a surf-and-turf molcajete in the middle of it, still bubbling, and that only lands if everyone is sitting together. The second is outdoor space, because Israel’s parrillada is a grill night and it wants a grill.
The table matters more than the stove.
What the kitchen has to have
Less than people expect. The chef does the shopping, so your fridge starts empty and gets filled the afternoon of the dinner. Guillermo buys his own produce and will not hand that job to anyone. Out on the East Cape the coolers travel with the crew, because there is no shop to duck out to when something is missing.
Whether your particular kitchen works is not a question anyone here can answer from a distance. Send a photo. Every booking on this site gets settled over messages days ahead, and one picture of the counter and the hob says more than a paragraph of description.
Staffed villa, all-inclusive, or your own chef
Three different things get sold under the same phrase, and what separates them is who chose the cook.
An all-inclusive rental folds the food into the nightly rate. A staffed villa usually comes with someone who handles breakfast and lunch. Hiring your own chef is the third route, and the only one where you pick the person and build the menu with them.
| What you booked | Hands on the pans | Who picks the menu | When it gets booked |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-inclusive rental | Whoever the house uses | Set by the package | With the house |
| Staffed villa | The house cook, usually breakfast and lunch | Mostly the house | With the house |
| Your own chef | The chef you picked | Yours, agreed over messages | Any time after you have dates |
Ask the property first
Rules change from one address to the next, and whatever you read online belongs to somebody else’s building. Put four questions to the rental manager or the HOA before you lock a date with anyone.
- Are outside vendors allowed to work in the house?
- Does the chef’s name need to go on an access list, and how far ahead?
- Is there a fee or a deposit for staff who are not the property’s own?
- What is actually in the kitchen?
The answers vary. Ask.
Six people, or thirty-six
Book any menu on this site and you are covered from two seats up to twenty. Past twenty the chef stops arriving alone. Guillermo turns up with fellow chefs and a bartender working cantaritos. Israel cooks beside Carolina. Sandra brings Jorge, who runs service while she fries the sopes.
Big houses are not a special case on this coast. Israel fed thirty-six people over five days without repeating a menu, and still sent out one-off plates for individual requests inside that week. Guillermo’s crew cooked their way through four straight days for a house of twenty-nine.
Teenagers and allergies change less than you would think. Devon booked a week of menus for nine, picky teens included, and said the coordination was the easy part.
“We came down with a group of twenty-nine and no restaurant could seat us. His crew cooked all our meals for four days, cleaned up, and took care of absolutely everything. I’ll use them again on the next trip.”
One dinner, or the week
You will most likely book one night and then keep going, because that is what houses here do. Laura cooked breakfast every day and five dinners for a family of eleven with four small children in it. Sandra gets hired for one dinner and ends up with the breakfasts and a long afternoon comida as well. Guillermo sells the full run, morning to night, as a matter of course.
“We hired her for the entire week — breakfast daily, five dinners — and every menu was different and delicious. She also handled our four young children brilliantly.”
What it comes to for the house
Each chef’s page carries a per-person price. What people actually want is the number for everyone.
Israel’s parrillada runs MX$950 a head, so twelve people is MX$11,400. Guillermo’s Quick & Cheap Mexican at MX$850 puts eight around the table for MX$6,800. Laura’s Luxury in Baja is MX$1,848, which makes a ten-person tasting MX$18,480.
Shopping and service sit inside those figures. You agree the number with the chef before anyone goes to the market. Currency and tipping are covered in the field notes.
Two seats, or a whole weekend
Menus start at two. A table for two is as ordinary here as a house of twenty, and the small bookings get the same market run as the big ones.
Bachelorette weekends are routine. Israel has cooked for a bachelorette of sixteen, and for ten friends who between them needed every dietary quirk handled.
“Incredible for our group of ten girls — he outdid himself at every turn, cooked around every dietary need, and we were so well taken care of. We would go back just for his food.”
Who suits which week
- Guillermo Carmona
- for the big house that wants a crew and a bartender in it.
- Miguel Ángel López
- for the night where the food itself is the reason you booked.
- Israel Rojas
- for the long stay that needs a different menu every evening.
- Laura Ariana Valenzuela
- for the week that wants breakfasts as well as dinners.
- Sandra Acosta
- for the family-style table, drinks poured alongside.
from MX$1,350 Miguel Ángel López
Thirteen years from Mexico City school to Cabo’s luxury kitchens
from MX$1,320 Laura Ariana Valenzuela
Raised on a farm in Argentina, finished in Italy, settled in Baja
Questions people send before they book
Can I rent a house in Los Cabos with a chef included?
You can. It gets sold as an all-inclusive or a staffed rental, and the cooking is priced into the room. The other route is to rent the house you want on its own merits and bring your own chef, which leaves the menu and the person up to you rather than the property.
Which villas in Los Cabos offer a private chef?
Almost any of them, once you separate the two things. A handful of rentals employ a cook of their own. The rest are simply houses a chef travels to, which covers most of Cabo San Lucas, the Corridor, San José del Cabo, the East Cape and Todos Santos.
Do we need an all-inclusive villa to get a private chef?
No. How the house was advertised has nothing to do with it. The five chefs here take bookings at addresses that were never marketed as anything more than a place to sleep.
Can a private chef cook at a hotel or a condo in Los Cabos?
Sometimes, and it rests entirely with the building. Resorts and condo towers set their own rules about outside staff, and some charge for it. Ask the property before you settle a date with a chef.
What does a villa dinner come to for the whole house?
Multiply the chef’s per-person price by the number of chairs. Menus here run from MX$850 to MX$1,900 a head, which puts a table of ten somewhere between MX$8,500 and MX$19,000, groceries and service included.
Got the house already?
Send the dates, the headcount and the name of the community. The menu comes back to you.