Chef Joshua Alkire

Chef Josh cooked an amazing dinner for my sister’s bachelorette party in San Diego. From the moment I first got in touch with him, he was very responsive, flexible, and easy to work with. He created a menu based on our preferences and budget and everything turned out exactly as planned. We had rented a house, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but he came fully prepared with everything he needed and made the whole process so easy! He was both professional and fun and his dinner was the perfect start to our weekend — the whole group was impressed. I highly recommend him and would love to work with him again!

My husband hired Josh for my birthday this year. He made an amazing 6 course meal for me and 5 friends. He had fresh ingredients that were in season and made an amazing meal. He was able to accommodate everyone’s taste including a vegetarian without any problems. I would highly recommend him and wouldn’t hesitate to use him again.

I just read all the other 5-​star reviews and must wholeheartedly validate all of the positive comments. Perhaps a different twist for me is to add the reaction of my teenage daughter to Chef Joshua’s food. After tasting his meatball soup (which is way more delicious than it might sound), my daughter said, «this tastes like real food, this makes me feel good to eat it.» Kind of a strange thing to say, right? I think this speaks to THE QUALITY of Chef Joshua’s food. He is creative and inventive without blowing the budget. 5 stars!

I’ll be uploading pics once I’ve have everything downloaded from our vacation, but Chef Josh did an AMAZING job for my family’s reunion down in San Diego last week. He cooked dinner for us three of the night we were there and it was a unique and special treat each time. We didn’t think we could manage getting to a fancy restaurant with all our kids and toddlers, but we didn’t have a sacrifice on getting top restaurant quality food. In fact, since we were able to tell him about our preferences each night, the food was probably better than what we could have gotten in a restaurant.
His personality is super friendly and open, and made for a great atmosphere during dinner. And his food spoke for itself. Every course was soooo good and super fresh. And nothing he did were typical, predictable dishes. There were surprises with every course, and they all worked. And I’m not one to typically praise salads, but every salad he did was really, really interesting. And delicious. Everyone cleaned their salad plates, which is not typical. And you have request him to make a berry pie. Best berry pie hands down.
For the quality of ingredients, the amount of effort he took during preparation, and his friendly nature and fun energy, his price is really, really reasonable. We would not hesitate to call him again next time we’re in the area (hopefully soon)!
100% recommend him to anyone interested in a personal chef. His food is AWESOME.

My wife and I wanted to do something extra special for our 10-​yr anniversary, so we decided to hire a chef for a private dinner. After reading glowing reviews and checking out his blog, we decided to go with Chef Josh. We didn’t have the budget for exotic ingredients, but regardless, Chef Josh worked with us and was able to craft an experience for us that was exactly what we were looking for, without breaking the bank. We already had high expectations, and he still managed to exceed them.
For our experience he put together an 8-​course dinner, and every single dish was unique and exceptional. We decided to give him freedom in choosing our menu, which was preferable, since he bought the produce fresh from local farmer’s markets literally just before coming to prepare the meal. Although we paid more than we would have at a nice restaurant, for us it was a dining experience that far exceeded the nicest restaurants we’ve ever been to. We’ve got absolutely no reservations in recommending Chef Josh for whatever event you might have, big or small. I’ll upload photos so you can see the amazing dishes he prepped for us.

My husband and I just had our 5^th anniversary, and without even thinking, we called Chef Josh to come and cook for us. We had used him previously for another event, and were so pleased, we decided to do a private dinner for just the two of us.
Chef always comes with all of his stuff! He wheels in a few big containers, beautiful produce from whatever magical farmers market he goes to, and finds lovely meats to work with as well. On this particular occasion, he did a «tapas» style dinner for us. We had one small plate after another of delicious food. My personal favorite was a homemade gnocchi dish with seared pork, squash blossoms, fava beans, dressed in an acidic breath of sauce. I would almost call it a light dressing. It was simple, and one of the best things I have had. I want to eat it right now, as a matter of fact. He found my black truffle salt, and took the potato skins from the gnocchi and made truffled potato skins. We wolfed those down almost as quickly as they were set in front of us. Our dessert were marscapone stuffed strawberries with a homemade tulle cookie. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t fresh and flavorful though.
Chef Josh is personable without being intruding. He is very good at reading a room and knows when it’s time to back away for the guests. We are pretty chatty people though, and fully enjoyed his company almost as much as the food.
He is super affordable too! Very reasonable, especially for everything he provides… including a clean kitchen when it’s all said and done.
If I could afford a personal chef full-​time, I would hire this guy. I’ll post pictures soon, and look for the separate review of his visit for my mothers 60^th birthday celebration!

Josh is quite a chef. His cooking style is innovative. He is knowledgeable and experienced yet adventurous. Everything he fed us was completely delicious. He makes things fun and made us all go for seconds and thirds… Can’t wait to eat his food again!

I wanted to throw a «Housewives of San Diego» themed bachelorette party for one of my girlfriends and no self respecting Bravo Housewife throws a party without a personal chef. I found Joshua’s information on Unilocal and also emailed another 10 other chefs. Joshua was the most responsive, polite and got my theme. We rented a condo in Mission Bay, set up a martini bar, got our costumes and were ready for our drama-​filled dinner. Joshua made us a wonderfully delicious meal and although he didn’t agree to dance for us, he was really entertaining and laughed at all of our cheesy housewives impersonations (the martinis were flowing and we are moms who don’t get a night away very often). We had a great night and our dinner was the highlight of the party. Thank you!!!

Was looking for a great chef to cook breakfast for a group of women on a bachelorette party. Although I was not there in person, I heard he was quite welcoming and made a great meal! Price seemed reasonable and he was also a good communicator. Chef Joshua was also responsive on email and phone.

Wonderful. Amazing. Professional. Pleasant. I can’t write enough about my experience with Chef Joshua Alkire. I was looking for a chef to host several future events at my home in La Jolla. His menu is endless and each dish has a unique taste. He is an artist. He plays with various spices and awakens your taste buds. I really liked his up-​beat, let’s do it, let’s start to work and make his clients happen attitude. He is from San Diego, I’ve always had a great experience with SD natives and he is a native. He has had a great background experience working with various restaurants, chefs, and high profile clients –you can speak to him in more detail about his resume. I interviewed with him in person and he was very receptive and confident about his work and dishes. I really truly hope to continue entertaining and I wouldn’t have anyone else create our dinners but him. He is permanently in my email contacts and phonebook. Feel free to send me an email and I can rave more and tell you more detail about him ;) He is reasonably priced and is willing to work with you. We are having our second event and he will be creating our delicious dishes then. I’m actually counting down days until the brunch. Our first event was a dinner and now we are going to try a brunch this time. I give him 5 stars for his professional attitude, easy going yet upbeat personality, creative dishes yet tastefully done.