Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Home Cook
What to ask and what to verify before an arrangement is agreed.
Knowledge · Home Cook Services
How to Choose a Home Cook
A cook works in the most particular room in the house, to a taste your household already has, on a schedule that has to fit everyone's day. This covers how to work out what you actually need and what to weigh when choosing. It is about arranging the help — not about nutrition, diets or what anyone should be eating.
When this is useful
Before You Start Looking
General guidance for the household doing the arranging. It covers how to decide, not what to pay — we do not publish rates and this page will not suggest any.
- You are arranging a cook for the first time and are not sure what to specify
- Cooking has become the part of the week the household cannot absorb
- A previous arrangement ended over food that never quite suited
- Your household eats a particular way and you need someone who can cook it
What households should know
Start From How Your Household Eats
Four things decide whether this arrangement lasts, and the first one is the one most households skip.
1 · Describe the food before describing the job
What your household actually eats on an ordinary Tuesday — the style of cooking, how spiced, what appears most weeks, what nobody touches. Households that can describe this get matched well. Households that ask for "simple home food" get whatever the phrase means to the person cooking, which is rarely what it meant to them.
2 · Work out the timings before the meal count
When does your household actually eat, and who is present? A cook arriving at an hour that suits nobody produces food that gets reheated later, which defeats most of the point. Fixing the timings first usually settles the meal count on its own, and often reveals the need is smaller than assumed.
3 · Say what is required rather than hoping it is understood
If a household needs particular ingredients kept out of the kitchen, separate utensils, or a specific way of preparing something, state it plainly at the start and treat it as a requirement. This includes anything a doctor or dietitian has set for someone in the house — a cook can follow written instructions exactly, but only if they are given them.
4 · Judge the fit over a fortnight, not a first meal
The first week is a stranger cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen for people whose preferences they are still learning. Most of what feels wrong at that point is seasoning and method, and it corrects quickly if described specifically. Give it a couple of weeks, agree in advance that you will review at that point, and be precise rather than polite when you do.
Practical considerations
What to Weigh When Choosing
Practical factors only. Nothing here concerns nutrition, diets, or what any household should be eating.
Cooking style over years of experience
Someone who cooks the way your household eats will suit better than someone with longer experience of a different style. Ask what they cook most often rather than how long they have cooked.
How many people, and how variable
A household of three with a steady routine and a household of eight with people coming and going are different jobs. Be honest about which yours is.
Whether groceries are part of it
Some arrangements include shopping, most do not. Decide before you start looking, because it changes both the hours and the kind of person who suits.
Kitchen cleanup after cooking
Whether clearing up is included is the single most common unstated assumption in this service. Settle it explicitly rather than discovering the difference in week two.
Willingness to cook to instruction
Ask directly whether they are comfortable cooking to a household's stated preferences and adjusting when asked. Some people prefer to cook their own way, which is a genuine mismatch worth finding early.
A schedule that is realistic daily
Timings that only just work will not survive a changed routine. A slightly later slot that someone can keep every day is worth more than an ideal one they cannot.
General guidance vs our service
Where This Guidance Ends and Our Service Begins
Everything above applies however you arrange a cook. This is the part our home cook placement is actually responsible for.
What Quality Care can help with
- Talking through how your household eats and what timings would realistically work
- Matching on cooking style and the kind of household, not on availability alone
- Identity, address and background verification, completed before anyone enters your home
- Briefing the cook on your stated preferences and requirements before the first day
- Placing someone who can follow a written instruction from your doctor or dietitian exactly as given
What we do NOT advise on
- Nutrition and diet. We do not advise on what anyone should eat, portion sizes, or the health value of any food
- Medical diets. Therapeutic, diabetic, renal or any prescribed diet must come from a doctor or dietitian. We follow it; we never design or adjust it
- Meal plans, weight guidance, or food as treatment for any condition
- Food safety certification, or what standards a kitchen is required to meet
- Pay. We do not publish rates or suggest what anyone should be paid
- Promising that food will be to your taste. We can match on style; we cannot guarantee a result
We place cooks into homes and brief both sides before a placement starts. Where a household needs a medically prescribed diet, the diet itself must come from the treating doctor or a qualified dietitian — we will place someone who can follow it exactly as written, and nothing on this page is a substitute for that advice.
Common questions
Questions Households Ask Us
How many meals a day should we arrange?
Start from when your household actually eats together rather than from a number. Many families find one properly cooked meal a day covers most of the need, with the rest handled from what has been prepared. Working through a normal week usually answers this in ten minutes.
Does regional cooking experience matter?
It matters if your household eats a particular way and would notice the difference. Say so plainly at the start and treat it as a requirement rather than a preference — it is much easier to match on at the outset than to correct afterwards.
Should we ask for a trial before agreeing?
Many households do, and it is a reasonable thing to ask for. Treat it as a mutual look at whether the kitchen, the timings and the cooking suit each other, rather than as an examination — the person is also deciding whether the arrangement works for them.
What if the food is not quite what we expected?
Say so early, specifically and kindly — which dish, and what you would prefer. Most mismatches in the first weeks are about seasoning or method rather than ability, and they resolve quickly when described precisely instead of being left to accumulate.