Chef agency
Brighton & Sussex

No. We do not have a physical office in Brighton. We serve the Sussex coast from our London office, roughly 1.5 hours by road via the M23 / A23. The London chef bench drives direct to Brighton, Hove, and the wider Sussex coast for most placements. We will be straight about the model rather than fake a Brighton address.

For planned bookings of two weeks or more, we confirm a named chef inside 48 hours of brief receipt. For shorter or emergency cover at central Brighton or Hove venues, the realistic window is 24 hours from London when the bench has free capacity. Same-day cover is possible for established clients with a brief on file, though it depends on bench availability rather than being a contractual commitment for Brighton.

Brighton, Hove, Lewes, Eastbourne, Worthing, Chichester, Hastings, the Goodwood Estate, and the wider South Downs venue belt. For Goodwood Festival of Speed (June), Glorious Goodwood (late July to early August), or Goodwood Revival (September), see our event guidance because Festival weeks need 8-12 weeks of lead time. For Chichester and West Sussex placements specifically, the booking line will tell you whether your venue fits the London driving radius or whether live-in is the better fit.

For placements of four weeks or longer at Sussex country house hotels (the Goodwood Hotel tier, the Cliveden tier near the Berkshire border, and similar) the live-in model fits better than daily-commute cover. Chefs travel from our London bench with on-site lodging provided by the venue, stay for the duration of the booking, and are paid travel-inclusive day rates. For most central Brighton and Hove placements, daily driving from London is fine — Brighton sits inside our practical day-trip radius.

Every chef we send into a Sussex care home, school, or nursery setting holds Enhanced DBS with the relevant Barred List check before the first shift. Chefs for Brighton hotels, restaurants, conference venues, and event sites hold Right to Work, Level 2 Food Safety, and Allergen Awareness as a baseline. All Chefs Bay workers are employed on full PAYE, no umbrella companies.

Yes. Brighton Festival (May), Brighton Pride (early August), and the Goodwood event calendar (Festival of Speed June, Glorious Goodwood late July to early August, Revival September) are all real use cases for our event-experienced chef bench. Operators booking 8-12 weeks ahead of any of these windows get the deepest pool. Glorious Goodwood week is the most over-subscribed across the Sussex calendar, with hospitality boxes and racecourse caterers competing for the same seasonal chefs.

For shorter Brighton bookings local agencies (Catering International Brighton, Chef Zone, Rock Recruitment) are competitive. The advantage of our London-served model is bench depth: the London chef bench is larger than the Brighton-only pool, which matters for longer placements and for the Goodwood event-week peaks when local supply is over-subscribed. For most central Brighton placements either model works; for event peaks and longer country house cover, our model wins on bench depth.