Nova Personal Chef

My boyfriend bought me the Living Social deal for my birthday. I loved it. Not only was the meal delicious, but chef Zan was a great teacher. He took the time to really help me understand the techniques so that I wouldn’t hurt myself or ruin my food. He also took the time to explain how what we were making could be altered for other dishes… I can’t wait to make pumpkin fritters. :)
I uploaded a picture so you can see how yummy it looks. We definitely recommend Zan if you are looking for something unquie to do in your own home.

I ordered a Groupon for a Christmas present for my husband (I know, I know, it’s July and we just redeemed it. We’ve been busy!). We couldn’t have been more pleased with Zan. He started off by asking us how involved we wanted to be with the cooking, and much to our pleasure, he made sure we were really involved. He taught us some useful techniques, such as knife skills and an easier way to mince garlic. He brought his own pots, which was great as far as cleaning up (he also told us he sanitizes with restaurant-​grade equipment between each house — nice to know). He was friendly and professional, and it was important to him that we felt that we could do the meal again ourselves in the future. He’d done a good job teaching, so I’m sure we can.
Overall, we had a really fun evening and would definitely use him again!

I found Nova Personal Chef from a Groupon Deal for $ 79 for an in-​home cooking lesson for 2. We absolutely loved it!
Prior to purchasing the groupon, we contacted Chef Zan via email to see if he could accommodate our dietary restrictions (we are vegetarian) and he was extremely helpful and flexible. He let us customize our menu to dishes we were interested in preparing and sent us a grocery list for items to purchase prior to our lesson. He was very responsive to each email or phone call we made. We also confirmed our appointment 1 day prior to his arrival.
Chef Zan arrived exactly on time with all the cooking supplies we needed. He walked us through the entire recipe, answered all our questions on cooking tips, taught us proper techniques, and engaged us every step of the way. The food was amazing and Chef Zan was an absolute pleasure to have at our house. Since our lesson, we have been raving to all our friends and family about this positive experience and our new found recipes.
We can’t wait to try to make the dishes on our own. We highly recommend Chef Zan to anyone that is looking for a caterer or cooking lesson. He is well versed in all cuisines, patient, and very accommodating.
Thank you Chef Zan for a wonderful evening!

I was made aware of Zan Dial via a Livingsocial thing I purchased that gives me a weeks worth of recipes with a shopping list that is tailored around the sales at my local grocery. Most of the recipes are very very delicious and I am always amazed that I just cooked that! Of course all taste buds are different so some of them my family and I don’t care for, but we consider it a learning experience. We like the variety that this has afforded us and it has opened us up to new experiences with food. The customer service is just the best. The first issue I had was when I didn’t have a grill which was listed to use in a recipe. I wrote to him and asked what I should do and he suggested a grill pan. Then I had problems with my grill pan smoking really badly and he gave me tips to stop that as well. Then tonight as I was preparing dinner, my son grabs my phone which I use to read the recipes from while in the kitchen and makes the recipe disappear. I freak out and look for it in the deleted folder and everywhere and its no where to be found. So I quickly emailed Zan to see if he could send me the recipe again. He did send that recipe, but he went even further and gave me his number and told me if I ever had any issues like that come up again to just give him a call. I was so blown away! Needless to say, I was able to finish our dinner tonight and it got rave reviews from the whole family!

Zan is a friggin’ genius! I purchased a BuyWithMe deal for a dozen cupcakes. I wanted them delivered to my boyfriend’s job for an early Valentine’s gift. He got them there and actually waited for my guy to come down and get them, instead of just dropping them off with security. Its the little things that matter.
According to boyfriend and family, they were good. I’d use this service again. I actually called Zan to confirm everything prior to delivery and he was really nice. I totally appreciate the service.

I’ll give one star for poor communication skills especially for a small business owner. He doesn’t respond to emails in a timely matter, and when it’s done, the excuses are pretty lame.
It’s upsetting when businesses ventures into the Groupon, Livingsocials, homerun of the world, but cannot even handle the basic of communication.
Will I hire him for catering? Never. Scary to pray for cater to show up.

Heard about this company through a Living Social Deal that I purchased — $ 75 for a 1 hour in-​home cooking lesson for 2 (value $ 150).
Pros: you can learn to cook anything you would like within reason and are not restricted to items listed on the website.
Cons: the website is very thin on information — it needs licensing/​certification/​safety credentials for potential clients to review; and Zan Dial (the chef) could do better at responding via email. I sent a confirmation of what we wanted to cook and there was no reply, so I wondered if he got my message. Nevertheless — he showed up ready to cook on our scheduled evening.
Zan arrived at the house a few mins early, which was fine. He wore a white chef’s coat with his name on it and brings everything — the pots and pans for cooking, cutting board, food, utensils, and has this really cool knife set in a roll up case. You supply the dishes you will eat on.
Unfortunately, my first impression wasn’t great because you could tell Zan smoked, and as someone who doesn’t smoke… having your chef arrive smelling like that isn’t a good feeling. But, he has a friendly personality, which is good. He seemed a bit nervous, which made me a little nervous — but all went well.
He asked how hands on we wanted the class — so it’s good we could dictate that. Appreciated some tips he provided such as how to sharpen and take care of knives, how to cut onions and general cooking tips as we went along.
I was a little disappointed that he only showed us how to cook the entrée — chicken parma rosa (which is chicken and pasta with a tomato/​cream sauce) since he mentioned on the phone that each lesson includes learning 3 items (an app, entrée and side dish). We ended up making a quick salad to accompany the chicken/​pasta after he left.
Overall, it was a neat experience although not worth the price before the discount. In addition to the suggestions above, I recommend that Zan provide clients with a post-​lesson survey so he can learn what folks liked and didn’t like — that way he can continue to improve and grow his company.

For our two year anniversary, my boyfriend and I had a private cooking lesson from Zan at Nova Personal Chef — BEST DECISION EVER! It was amazing — he carefully planned a menu with our tastes in mind (healthy, spicy, yummy chipotle shrimp tacos with roasted corn and pinapple salsas), and then brought all the groceries, supplies, etc. to our apartment for the cooking lesson. I just can’t rave enough about it … he taught us how to better cut all sorts of vegetables and fruits, he went through our kitchen tools and made recommendations about the knives, pots, pans, … it was just so helpful to have a knowledgeable chef come into our house and help us improve our cooking. When we sat down to eat, we couldn’t believe that we had actually made such a delicious, gourmet meal together! In sum: I highly recommend Zan’s cooking lessons, and I’m about to order some of his gourmet meals for delivery …

I made a reservation for a meal delivery with Nova Personal Chef about 2 months in advance for a day-​before bridal brunch. About a week before I emailed Zan Dial, the proprietor, to check that my brunch was on their delivery schedule. He was hard to get ahold of, I tried by phone as well, but he did confirm the day before and delievered my brunch EXACTLY on time on the day I needed it.
Brunch was: some tasty herbed eggs that looked perfect for the Dr. Seuss story, the best bacon I’ve had in a while, sausages, biscuits, home fries and fruit salad. It served about 12 people (we brought our own mimosas, coffee and tea) and we had some left overs. It all arrived in disposable tin catering dishes.
They also do a nightly dinner delivery and a few other kinds of party meals (bbq, «game» food, etc.)