I’m Chef Natasha. My first name isn’t chef, just to be clear. My full name is Natasha Osborne, and I’ve been a chef for about twenty one years now.
In this delightful beachside episode of The Secret List, we chat with Chef Natasha right on the sands of St. Ives during the town’s bustling Food Festival.
Born and bred in St. Ives with 21 years of culinary passion behind her, Natasha has made her mark as both a private chef and wedding caterer, bringing restaurant-quality dining directly to Cornwall’s most stunning holiday homes. From her early days at Porthminster Cafe to running her charming Bre Cafe atop Porthmeor Hill, Natasha embodies the spirit of Cornwall’s tight-knit culinary community.
With infectious enthusiasm for her homeland’s incredible produce and hidden gems, Natasha shares the secrets behind her popular private dining experiences – where guests get dressed up in their finest frocks and slippers, enjoy bespoke menus in their holiday lets, and discover why eating in can be far more magical than eating out.
From pop-up recommendations to stunning coves, Natasha’s local wisdom and warm personality make this a perfect taste of Cornwall’s best-kept culinary secrets.
The Secret List guide is part of how we create exceptional experiences for guests staying in our Cornwall Airbnb collection. We’re Cornwall’s Airbnb management experts. Learn more >
I’m born and bred in St. Ives, so super passionate about the food and the produce that we can get here right where we are literally sat right now. I’ve been a private chef and a wedding caterer for the last eleven years. Before that, I was working in restaurants, even Porthminster Cafe here with Mick, prior to that, and a few restaurants around town. We all know each other. We all help out. Jump in.
After that, I got into the wedding catering and private dining. I have what I used to laugh about calling my little side hustle, which is my little cafe now at the top of Porthmeor Hill in St.Ives called Bre Cafe. That’s kind of my base for all my work.
During the day and the morning, I do really tasty brunches and signature drinks and super fun and healthy food there.
That sounds delicious. Maybe tell us a little bit about the private catering because we’ve got a lot of people that come down and are staying on holiday down here. And when you’re on holiday, you don’t always want to cook.
When I was listening to you talking about people getting dressed up in their best frocks and wearing their slippers, it sounded quite fun. Tell us a little bit about that and what you do.
So, the private dining element was born from when I was a lot younger. Sounds awful to say now. I used to do ski seasons in the French Alps. So, it’s kind of a similar concept to we have here.
When you on a ski holiday, you’ll have a chef of the week, and they’ll cook you breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then a four-course evening meal. And then when I sort of finished my seasons and I’d had my son and I was based back in St.Ives. I realised that at the time, eleven years ago, there wasn’t really a huge market for it.
All the holiday lets in St. Ives are so well equipped. They’ve got stunning views. I was just thought to myself, why are we not doing this here? Why is someone not enjoying this view and this dining table and these facilities that they paid for the week.
Why eat out every night when you can eat in? And so that’s kind of when the Chef Natasha business was born and we haven’t really looked back since. It’s just people I find now are kind of more including it on their holidays as a week to week thing as part of their weekly restaurant selection. They’ll think, we’ll get a chef in now. Certainly, COVID actually did really boost the trade for us because you couldn’t eat out at restaurants. So, lots more private dining was happening. So, it’s really helped the trade and more awareness of how fun, relaxed and special a private dining event can be.
You have got to be super organised, which, obviously, I am, but you’re still you’re getting to choose your own menu. You might go to a town and you might be like do you know what, I really wanted to have this or I wanted a fritto misto, and I haven’t seen it on offer in any of the restaurants. You have a private chef. You tell your private chef your preferences, what you want to have, what you want to eat, whose birthday it is, how many courses you want.
You can have a wine pairing if you want, and you get to literally sit down and enjoy a restaurant size style service. All the tables laid up. It literally is like a restaurant home from home. It’s amazing. People love it.
People have little children, they couldn’t think of anything worse than taking toddlers out to a restaurant. It’s so stressful for the parents, trying to navigate children and try and enjoy a nice fancy meal. So, it’s the perfect situation for that because you can put the children to bed. They’re happy. Parents are happy.
And like you said, people do get dressed up, which I absolutely love. But sometimes they do put their slippers on. I mean, why not?
It sounds like the perfect way to be treated but also be sort of super relaxed in terms of you don’t have to leave. There are no timings. I bet you, A, hear some funny stories, and B, it’s quite a lovely vibe.
People are super inquisitive as well because just like the demonstration we’ve just done here, all of the kitchens usually that you’ll go into in a holiday rental are all open plan. The dining table’s right opposite you, and people are really interested in hearing how you make something. So, it’s not just like you’re coming in and you’re sitting down and eating a four or five course menu. You also get to talk and interact with the chef and ask how things are made.
You also learn a thing or two and learn about the industry. People are always full of all sorts of different questions, and I do find it really interesting, talking to all the different guests and hearing what they want to ask me or what they find interesting or what they want to learn. Quite often people will have wines they’ll bring along, and they’ll come and show them to me at the start of the night, and they’ll ask me. Even though we do offer a wine pairing, we don’t always insist on it. Lots of people these days have a really decent wine selection at home, so they do sometimes like to bring them along.
We just talk through it all, and people are often really pleasantly surprised to even see the kitchen sparkling clean. They always make a comment like, It’s cleaner than when you first came here, Tash. That’s all part of the service. We come. We feed you. We leave. It’s spotless, and the only thing left behind is just satisfied customers with full tummies.
That sounds like something that everyone that comes down should definitely experience. How would they go about finding you and organising you coming to cook for them?
So we do have a website, which is chefnatasha.co.uk. If you do type in private chef in Cornwall into Google search, we do come up pretty high up so you can find us on there. We do obviously have our social medias on Instagram and Facebook still under the same name, chef Natasha. You can contact us via the website, which should take you straight through to an email, but also some people do contact us via social media and book that way.
Brilliant. Thank you for that. And when you go out for a bite to eat with your friends, what are your sort of top places to go and eat?
I was thinking about this when we were just talking about it before, and I think it’s such a rare occasion for me to actually really plan a night out. I feel like I’m always looking more for an event. So more of a pop up.
Ross Geach does his pop ups at Padstow Kitchen Garden. Nancarrow do really nice pop ups over there. For me, I am always looking for a pop up or an event.
There’s a really cool Mexican company called Pica Rico. They’re based in Helston, and they’ve been doing quite a few pop ups all over Cornwall recently. They recently did a pop up with Little Palais in St.Ives, which is a really cute little backstreet bar. They make their own ice cream too. It’s kind of cute. I tend to go to events like that, which are more niche, more special to me because I’m from here and I live here. If I was to say to someone, okay, the best restaurants to go to in St.Ives, from my personal opinion, would be because I do like that kind of flavour packed food like Silco and Porthmeor Cafe. Obviously, you got seafood. You’re going to go to Porthminster. But for me, when I go out, it’s definitely a pop up or an event that I’m looking for.
Brilliant. I think at those sorts of events there’s a lot of atmosphere. There’s a lot going on. And you’re often seated with some completely random people, but actually, you end up spending more time talking to them than you do to your own friends or your partner that you’re with. And you end up having some quite colourful experiences, don’t you?
And it’s all very relaxed.
Yes. Definitely. And I just really love that sharing style and meeting new people. Even in my little café people come in and we share tables in the cafe. There’s nothing that really warms my heart more than seeing two tables sat next to each other and they’re just getting along so well and having a nice chat. I’m looking at them thinking, what a nice thing to do or what a nice afternoon or morning or whatever time it is. And they’re just really just hitting it off, and they’ve just met just because they come here. I do really love that.
That style of dining now is really, really popular. I think people are a lot more open minded to sharing and not bothered about having a table to themselves and meeting new people. And I think it’s really important. Super lush. I love it.
Lovely. I think that’s a really great tip. And what about to wrap up, one special suggestion that you might give to somebody coming down to Cornwall?
You caught me off guard there. I’m just thinking because I just feel like everything is on your doorstep here. But I do quite often recommend Kynance Cove at low tide.
Some of the beaches for the beach walks. I guess when I go to a new town and say, for example, I’m away, I tend to always just try and look what’s going on in the area that week and seeing what this special events are that are happening.
Cornwall is kind of self-explanatory. You have all the beaches there. You can find a lot of stuff that’s quite commonly well known. What I kind of like is finding the secret things that are happening, the unknown things, the things that aren’t that well advertised, but they always end up being really, really good. In the bay here, you have a lot of boat trips that you can do. People love going to Seal Island and all of that kind of thing. But I just think just get out there, explore, get on an open top bus, travel around, go to a pub, go for a walk, grab a pint, have a roast, you know, all of it.
Just lap it all up. I think that’s it. If, when you start doing a little digging before you come down, or even if you you’re living down here, you actually find that your social media knows you quite well and it will start suggesting stuff to you that’s going on. It will start suggesting these pop ups and these little street food places that are appearing, or or little feasts on the beach. There are all sorts of events that go through the year as well and Cornwall seems to have so many lovely festivals. I think they are brilliant.
Thank you very much. Chef Natasha.