Questions
The things worth asking before you write.
How is this different from catering?
Catering delivers food that was decided before you ordered it. Atelier Limardo is a chef with a Michelin star cooking in your kitchen — a menu built for your table, wine and cocktails chosen against it, and his own team serving. The food does not exist before you commission it, and it is made in your home rather than delivered to it.
What does it cost?
Commissions begin at $15,000, and that is a floor rather than an average. Two things move the number. One is how many people sit down. The other is how far you want the evening to go — at one end Chef Limardo cooks the dishes he is known for in your kitchen; at the other a restaurant is built from nothing for a single night, with a menu invented for you and never served again. An evening can sit anywhere between the two, and privacy is not one of the dials: documented or not documented costs you the same. Your number arrives in the written proposal, before you commit to anything.
Is the evening private?
That is your call, and both answers are normal here. Some guests want the night documented — photographed and filmed, so that something survives an evening designed to disappear. Others want the opposite: no cameras, nothing kept, and a signed agreement from everyone who works on the evening. Neither is the default and neither costs you the other. You say which at the start, and it is written into the proposal.
How far ahead do I need to ask?
Four weeks is the shortest an evening can honestly be built in — dishes have to be developed before they can be cooked, and that work is the point. Most commissions take longer, and the earlier you write, the more room the chef has. If your date is sooner than that, write anyway and say so. We would rather tell you honestly whether it can be done than have you decide for us.
How many guests can it be?
There is no fixed range. An evening can be built for two, and it can be built for two hundred. The number changes almost everything — the size of the team, the shape of the service, the cost — so tell us yours early and it shapes the proposal from the start.
What about the wine and the cocktails?
Taken as seriously as the food. Drinks are part of how an evening is built rather than something added to it — chosen alongside the menu as it develops, and served by the same team. If there is a bottle you have been keeping for something, say so early and the menu can be built toward it.
Where does Atelier Limardo work?
Washington, DC and the surrounding region. The chef travels for the right commission — if your evening is somewhere else, say so in your inquiry and we will tell you honestly whether it can be done.
Is there a menu to choose from?
No. Every dish is developed for your evening, built around what you tell us in the questionnaire and the discovery call. You are welcome in the room while that work happens — tasting versions, discarding them, keeping the ones you love. Coming to those sessions is an invitation, never an obligation.
Who actually cooks?
Enrique Limardo, with a team he picks himself. They arrive with the kitchen, the tools and the service. Nothing is subcontracted.
What happens to my kitchen?
The chef and team visit beforehand to look at it honestly and work out where the cooking will happen — which usually asks less of a house than people expect. Afterwards everything is packed down, the glasses are washed, and your home is your home again by morning.