Chef agency
Cotswolds

No. We do not have a physical office in the Cotswolds. We serve the region from our Midlands office in Leicester, with drive time to the central Cotswolds at roughly 1.5 to 2 hours via the M40 or A46. The Midlands chef bench drives direct to Cotswold venues, and we offer live-in cover for placements of four weeks or longer at country house and wedding venues. We will be straight about the model rather than fake a Cotswolds 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, the realistic window is 24 to 72 hours from the Midlands. Same-day cover is rarely possible because of the drive time across rural Cotswold roads, and we will be honest about this on the call rather than promise and miss.

For placements of four weeks or longer at the Cotswolds wedding belt or at country house hotels (Daylesford tier, Calcot, Lords of the Manor, Lygon Arms, etc.), the live-in model fits better than daily-commute cover. Chefs travel from our Midlands or London bench with on-site lodging provided by the venue, stay for the duration of the booking, and are paid travel-inclusive day rates. This is the standard model for Cotswolds wedding-season head chef cover (May to September).

Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Campden, Broadway, Bourton-on-the-Water, Burford, Witney, Cirencester, Tetbury, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stroud, and the wider Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Cheltenham itself sits on the western edge — for Cheltenham Festival catering specifically, see our event guidance, because Festival weeks need different lead times. For southern Cotswolds venues near Bath, ring the booking line.

Every chef we send into a Cotswolds care home, school, or nursery setting holds Enhanced DBS with the relevant Barred List check before the first shift. Chefs for Cotswolds country house hotels, wedding 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.

Yes, where the venue books cover through agency rather than direct hire. The larger destination venues (Daylesford, Soho Farmhouse, Estelle Manor, Heckfield Place, the Newt) typically run their own permanent chef teams plus seasonal cover. We can supply head chef and sous chef cover for placements of four weeks or longer, and brigade reinforcement for wedding and event peaks. Operators booking 8-12 weeks ahead for the May-September wedding window get the deepest bench.

Cotswolds-specific agencies (Goldstar Recruit, Jubilee, Lime Hospitality, HTE Recruitment) compete for the same buyer searches and have local network advantages on faster placements. The advantage of our hybrid model is bench depth: we draw from London, Midlands, and Liverpool benches, which gives access to a wider pool of head chef and sous chef candidates for longer placements than a single-region agency typically holds. For shorter bookings the local players are competitive on speed; for wedding-season head chef cover and country house programmes our model wins on bench depth.