Kate Stephenson
Personal CHef
Hi there! I’m Kate, a personal chef living and cooking in the Richmond, VA area. I specialize in seasonal, farm-to-table style fare and use the highest quality ingredients I can find to create elegant, balanced and simple meals. While my primary focus is weekly meal prep, I am always open to exploring and considering any opportunity that comes my way, so please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Outside of cooking, I enjoy hot yoga, sprinkled donuts, fancy coffee, dinner parties, elaborate cheese boards and drinking wine with my husband.
My Experience
I founded Kate Uncorked, LLC in 2014 after graduating from Ballymaloe Cookery School's 12 Week Certificate Course. Ballymaloe is a farm to fork focused program situated on a 100-acre organic farm in Co. Cork, Ireland.
Since then, I have spent the last four years immersing myself in the food industry through Kate Uncorked. My experience includes catering, events, cooking classes, in home personal chef services and recipe development. I also have experience working with various food allergies and special diets including celiacs, diabetes, gastroparesis, keto, paleo, special carbohydrate diet, gluten free, dairy free and vegan.
In addition to my work in the food industry, I spent two years working for a New York based wine retailer and have earned two levels of certification from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) along with a wine certification from the Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland.
More about me!
Five years ago, I couldn’t have imagined I would be where I am today. I was finishing up my fifth year in New York City and thought that I had the perfect recipe for a happy and successful life. I had a steady job, a great group of friends and on top of that I was living in my favorite city in the world. I was essentially doing everything right but still went to bed each day feeling unfulfilled.
Food has always been a big part of my life and I credit my Grandmother with sparking my passion for cooking and baking at an early age. While most kids might have gone to the zoo or the playground with their grandparents, my visits consisted of picking blackberries from their backyard garden and baking a pie from scratch. Twenty years later, this is still my idea of a perfect Saturday (except now I’ll take my pie with a glass of rosé, please!).
I’m a firm believer that the best way to explore a city is through its food. Make no mistake, during my five years in New York, I didn’t just explore, I invaded the food scene (and my bank account is still suffering!). Whether I was trying a new restaurant, going back to an old staple (RIP Prima), getting lost in a farmers market or simply cooking dinners for friends, my fondest memories all involved food (and, let’s be honest, wine).
When the time came to commit to a sixth year in New York, I realized that I had a choice to make: I could stay on the steady path that I had created for myself or I could address the void that was becoming increasingly apparent in my life.
As you might have guessed, I chose the latter and decided it was time to follow my passion to greener pastures, literally. Enter Ireland. I quit my job, moved out of New York and enrolled in the 12 week intensive program at Ballymaloe, a world renowned farm-to-table focused cooking school located on an organic farm in Cork, Ireland. This turned out to be the best decision of my life to date.
As I understand it, there are very few times in life when you are given an opportunity to pursue a true passion, explore a new culture and move in with a group of 60 strangers who know nothing about you. I had the opportunity to do all three at once and am forever grateful. Ballymaloe changed my approach to food, helped me to develop a true respect for ingredients and molded me into the cook that I am today.
So, four years later, here I am! Living in my hometown of Richmond, VA, working as a personal chef and soaking up every ounce of culinary culture that Richmond has to offer. I originally created Kate Uncorked as a blog to document my adventures in Ireland. When I returned to The States, I started receiving several requests to cook food for mothers with newborn babies. After a bit of research, I realized there is a need for freshly prepared foods and personal chef services in the Richmond area and thus, my sweet little blog has grown into a sweet little business.
I’m so excited to share my food with the Richmond community and to continue to explore Richmond as it undergoes this incredible culinary renaissance. Thanks for stopping by!