The past year has been so hard on restaurants and caterers, but it is amazing to see how some businesses have innovated--from family dinners-to-go, the Marin Farmers' Markets curbside pickup CSA boxes, and takeout holiday meals. With large parties and functions cancelled for the year, Chef Visconte Catering has pivoted to offer the North Bay exquisite meals delivered to one's own door.
After spending the first five months of the pandemic self-isolating at home while my husband was deployed, we decided to take an eight-day road trip to Connecticut with two small daughters and small dog while my husband was home on leave. The girls (that includes the small dog) and I stayed to self-isolate with my family for an extended visit while my husband went back to work ship captain-ing. He's occasionally briefly at home, so I wanted to send him some nice meals for Christmas as a break from his freezer meals. And I preferred to order outside Grubhub or Doordash's platforms to avoid cutting into a small business's profits. This is surprisingly challenging. I finally searched nextdoor (a site that, for my sanity, I prefer to avoid) and came across a review for Chef Visconte.
Chef Visconte is the real deal--a European- trained chef who has worked in the best restaurants and catered for the most elegant venues. The meal delivery menu is lovely and the Viscontes provide impressively efficient, friendly service. Within minutes of ordering, Andrea Visconte, Chef Visconte's wife and the management half of the business, emailed to confirm my order and ask if I had any preferences for delivery time. Within a few days, she emailed me the delivery schedule. Forget Prime Now's 2 hour windows; Andrea said that Chef Visconte himself would deliver my order at 2:20 on Wednesday. He was there at 2:18. In addition to the paper instructions included with the order, Chef Visconte verbally went over the reheating instructions and meal description to my husband and Andrea emailed a copy of the cooking instructions. My husband--who did not know that the deliverer was the chef himself--noted Chef Visconte's enthusiasm for sharing his food.
I ordered the holiday meal of beef wellington and crab bisque as well as a freezer meal of beef pot roast. Chef Visconte also threw in a complimentary bag of almond cookies. I could tell over facetime that they were beautiful meals and my husband gave the beef wellington and bisque rave reviews (the pot roast is in the freezer for the next time he's home). I hope for the Viscontes' and all our sakes that we can reach some kind of "normal" soon, but in the meantime, this sort of accessible luxury provided by Visconte Catering is a bright spot in pandemic life. read more