03-03-2025
Restaurateurs moonlighting as private chefs ahead of Reeves's tax raid
Restaurateurs are moonlighting as private chefs to shore up income, as they brace for the impact of Rachel Reeves's tax raid.
Business owners said catering for private diners and events such as weddings and birthdays was becoming increasingly common as the cost of running a restaurant gets more and more expensive.
Sunitha Southern, the owner of Kira restaurant in Cheshire, said: 'We are [expanding] into catering, external catering and outdoor catering and weddings this year, because we can't run our restaurants five days a week and worry about how we're going to pay our bills.'
Dominic Chapman, who runs two restaurants in the south of England, said private chef work was a 'no-brainer'.
Mr Chapman, who charges between £500 and £750 per day for private work, said: 'The overheads, you're charging for ingredients and obviously, a little bit of cook time, but it's minimal: you've not got any building or things like that to pay rent on.
'I'm trying to do more and more and more.'
Hospitality businesses have faced steep rises in the cost of everything from ingredients to fuel and labour in recent years. They face a further blow in April, when they will be forced to pay higher employers' National Insurance (NI) contributions as a result of the Chancellor's Budget.
Trade organisation UKHospitality has warned the NI change will cost the industry around £1bn. That is before factoring in other costs such as an accompanying 6.7pc rise in the minimum wage.
Some chefs have given up on restaurants altogether.
Mike Sutton, a former restaurant chef who now works full-time in private catering, said: 'Since the Ukraine war, it just became a financial drain. It was [a] high-risk, low return, very difficult industry that was strangled through utilities, pricing, and rising costs.'
Ms Southern added: 'I'm paid £60 per hour for [private catering]. If I didn't have a restaurant, I would definitely go and do it full-time. I would easily earn good money, pay my taxes and not worry about it at all.
'I have clients who will [hire] me two or three times a month for events and parties at home. Then you have people who will say: can you come and just stock our fridge up, we are a very busy family.'
Gerry Sands, chef and co-owner of Odos, a Mediterranean restaurant in north London that also does private catering and events, said: 'You know exactly what you're going to order, exactly how much to buy of it. If they only want 20 oysters, you buy accordingly.
'Whereas for a restaurant, it's a bit of a guessing game – are they going to order the oysters or are they going to order a Dover sole?'
