Private dining The Cotswolds
Private Dining in The Cotswolds A restaurant evening, at home.
A private chef in your Cotswolds holiday house or family home — bespoke courses cooked fresh, served to your table, and the kitchen left spotless.
The Cotswolds is where Top Knot Chef began. A weekend away here was the trip that turned a recipe book idea into a business, so cooking in the county carries a bit more weight for James and Amy than a job on the diary.
Almost every Cotswolds booking is a weekend rather than an evening. Large rented houses around Stow-on-the-Wold, Burford, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Norton, Cirencester and Tetbury fill with a group who want one properly good dinner in the middle of it — often a hen weekend, a landmark birthday or an extended family gathering, with a relaxed grazing lunch or a breakfast added around the main event.
We are roughly two and a half hours away, so Cotswolds dates are planned further ahead and quoted with travel included and agreed upfront. That distance is exactly why the planning matters: menus, shopping, timings and any hire equipment are all settled well before we set off, and we arrive with everything needed rather than relying on a holiday-let kitchen drawer.
Holiday houses vary wildly. Some have a single domestic oven for sixteen guests; others have a full second kitchen. We ask about the space when you enquire and design the menu so it can actually be executed beautifully in the room you have — often leaning on live fire, sharing feasts and tapas where a formal plated service would fight the house.
Ideal for
Where this service works best
Holiday & rented houses
Hen & birthday weekends
Extended family gatherings
Grazing lunches & feasts
The details
What to expect
Menus, planned with you
Every menu is designed around your occasion, your venue and your guests, and agreed with you before the date is confirmed. Our sample menus are a starting point rather than a set list.
Allergies & dietary needs
Dietary requirements are taken seriously — Amy personally lives with a nut allergy. Please share full details early so we can plan what can safely and practically be accommodated.
Tableware & equipment
We can provide a limited amount of crockery and cutlery depending on the size of your event, and work with a trusted hire company for larger bookings or specific tableware.
Numbers & pricing
Minimum six guests, comfortably up to around 100 depending on the format and kitchen available. Pricing is by quotation only, and transparent before you commit.
Why book us in The Cotswolds
The Cotswolds questions, answered
Do you really travel to The Cotswolds?
Yes — it is where the business started and we cook there regularly. It is around two and a half hours from our base in Bishops Stortford, so we ask for a little more notice than a local booking.
How is travel handled for a Cotswolds booking?
Travel is written into your quotation and agreed before you commit, along with any overnight requirement for a late-finishing evening. Everything is itemised, with nothing added afterwards.
Can you cook in a rented Cotswolds house?
Yes, and most of our Cotswolds work is exactly that. Send the property details when you enquire so we can check the kitchen, the oven and the hob, and confirm the owner allows outside caterers.
Can you cover more than one meal over a weekend?
Often, yes. Alongside the main dinner we can add a grazing lunch, a breakfast or canapés on arrival, which works well when a large group is together for the whole weekend.
Serving Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, The Cotswolds and further afield for larger events. More practical detail is on our FAQs, or see the full range of private catering services.
Closer to home, we also cook professional private dining in Hertfordshire.
Planning ahead? Read Read our guide: what to expect when you book private dining.