The top chefs swapping restaurants for home delivery services

Look out restaurants, now some of the state’s best chefs are bringing their top-notch dishes to your door.

Forget dining out, some of Queensland’s best chefs are now bringing their award-winning food to your home.

Like a blast from the Covid days past, when restaurants were forced to offer meal delivery services to survive, many chefs are now reviving the trend, offering top-notch fare sent straight to your door.

Nathan Dunnell and Freja Rasmussen from former Queensland Restaurant of the Year Elska will launch their new meal delivery service, Nurtured, this week, creating comfort-style food made from the same high quality ingredients previously used in their restaurant.

Nathan Dunnell and Freja Rasmussen are launching home delivery meal service Nurtured, using produce from local farm LOOP Growers. Picture: Steve Pohlner

“We’ve ordered meal preps on and off throughout our lives and we do love the convenience of it when we’re really busy but the quality of it is not where it should be,” said Ms Rasmussen, who has teamed up with Loop Farmers in Draper for much of the produce.

“Nurtured is where we’ll connect with our farmers and support them and ensure that the community has accessible, incredible, mindful and nutrient-dense food and it’s at a pricepoint (about $15 per meal) that people can afford on a regular basis.”

The Dunnells closed Elska earlier this year after a dispute with the landlord, and will be relaunching it next year at their home in Cashmere, but said the meal delivery service was a great way of cooking for people without the current challenges facing the restaurant industry.

“There are less people spending money [in restaurants], the costs are going up and it’s a really tough time being in the industry, so from a business perspective you have to look at various ways of getting food out to people that’s affordable, delicious but accessible as well,” Ms Rasmussen said.

French restaurant Bisou Bisou in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley has also just launched a takeaway box, including a half chicken cooked on their signature rotisserie, as well as two sides and a sauce for $26.

The rotisserie chicken box from Bisou Bisou.

“We’re just trying to maintain some accessibility for people who can’t afford to go to the restaurants but are still looking for high-quality food to take home or cook at home,” executive chef Jake Nicolson said.

“[Also] our restaurant can only seat so many people so this gives us an opportunity to extend our offer to people who are on the go.”

The owner of Brisbane French fine diner Montrachet in Bowen Hills, Shannon Kellam, has also just started a home delivery service called Click Chef, serving elevated home-style meals, that was inspired by his Montrachet Dine at Home offering he launched during Covid.

“Unlike frozen alternatives, our dishes are meticulously prepared using the finest locally sourced ingredients,” said Mr Kellam.

Meal delivery service Providoor has relaunched with a host of celebrity chefs.

Meanwhile, national meal delivery service Providoor, which was started by celebrity chef Shane Delia during Covid to help restaurants survive, has also just relaunched, this time offering heat-and-eat meals from some of Australia’s biggest names in food including Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan, Silvia Colloco and Manu Feildel.