'>Our Covid-19 Policies
How we are currently operating & what are our policies during Covid-19 restricted periods?
Our service is still available as normal but below we’ve detailed our most up to date procedures & policies for your reference
Operating Procedures During Covid Restricted Periods
Review our policies & operational procedures below…
Following the prime ministers announcement on 22nd February 2021, we are hopeful that this will be our final Covid-19 related blog and update! But to reconfirm, as described in our previous Covid Update on 5th January, our service resumed following the first national lockdown on 1st June 2020. However, in the light of Covid-19, our private chefs were given more stringent operational procedures to follow to ensure your safety as well as their own.
In May, it was confirmed that in home services and tradespeople such as cleaners, carers, plumbers, electricians or private chefs, were still able to operate as their ‘job involves working in other people’s homes’ and therefore they are exempt from the new rules. This policy remained in place through the 2nd lockdown in November, was reiterated during the announcement of Tier 4 and finally again during the 3rd Lockdown yesterday, which you can read in full here…
As such, we were pleased to confirm that we were able to continue to provide our service during this 3rd lockdown, starting 5th January, and in any tier level (1 – 5) following this.
That being said, if you have hired a chef with us or are looking to hire a chef during this period then we respectfully ask that you adhere to the guidelines applicable in your area. As the host, you are responsible for understanding the regulations and ensuring anyone socialising in the house are adhering to them. Dineindulge is not in a position to be able to police guests and we therefore trust that our clients will be making the right decisions whilst understanding the risks involved if they don’t.
Guidelines for working in other people’s homes have been outlined by the government specifying what precautions cooks/chefs should be taking and as such we have updated our guidelines to make sure these are all covered. During your private chef experience, we require you to follow and/or be aware of the below procedures to ensure we can deliver your event to the highest level and still ensure you have a safe and enjoyable evening;
- Please ensure a clean working space for the chef on their arrival;
- Refrain from shaking hands with the chefs on arrival or departure and maintain a minimum 1 metre distancing from them;
- Your chef will be wearing a face mask at all times inside the home, apart from when they are tasting food in the kitchen, but please still allow space for the chef to safely enter the property to unload and to pack up at the end;
- Please provide an area where your private chef can change and use facilities separate from the other guests on arrival;
- In order to maintain social distancing, we request that guests briefly retire from the dining table when you are ready for the plates to be cleared and also before each course is served to the table;
- We would also request that handwash is provided in the kitchen and toilet facilities;
- Most importantly, should you, or any of your household or guests, show any of the following symptoms before or on the day of the event, you must inform the team immediately:
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- lost your sense of smell or taste or it’s changed
Our personal chefs work to the highest level of personal hygiene and are all trained in food hygiene, but these extra points will help us ensure that they can carry out their obligations safely and without affecting your overall experience of superb food and excellent service.
Covid-19 Cancellation Policy:
We have relaxed our cancellation policy significantly for any customers impacted by COVID-19. If you process a private chef booking with us and then governmental guidelines in your area change, preventing your event from going ahead, you now have a number of options.
If your private chef event is more than 48 hours away, you can either choose to cancel it completely and request a full refund minus the £60/70€/$90 deposit and we will put an amount equal to your deposit as credit on your Dineindulge account to use against your next booking so you don’t lose anything. Or you can move your event to a different date and location for no extra charge. Please note, we aren’t offering refundable deposits to deter groups, prohibited from gathering, booking up our availability for future dates without knowing if guidelines will be relaxed in time. This then reduces availability for groups who are still able to enjoy the service and so deposits ensure some level of commitment even if they can be transferred to a different date in the future.
If your cancellation occurs less than 48 hours before the event then you can still move your event to a different date and/or location and you will incur no penalty or additional charges for this other than additional travel if the location changes to one that is more remote. If you are unable to move your event and it needs to be cancelled, we’ll still honour the full value of everything you’ve paid to us as a credit and when you rebook you won’t lose anything even though Dineindulge will have incurred full food, preparation and chef costs at this stage.
Finally, as we’re not a venue or restaurant and we’re not hosting the event, we are not legally in a position to be able to police our customers or advise them on the variables involved regarding households, bubbles and whether they can or cannot gather. Therefore, we trust that our clients have a clear understanding of the guidelines in their area and are following them.
