Private Chefs for Short-Term Rentals
Discover how offering in-home food experiences can help you enhance guest experience, earn extra income, and get more repeat bookings, and how to get started.
In the latest episode of the Hospitable hosts podcast, we welcome Siddhi Mittal, the Co-Founder of Yhangry, a unique marketplace that connects customers with vetted professional chefs. Since 2019, Yhangry has been making it easy to book private chefs to come and cook for any occasion at reasonable prices.
Now, the platform is expanding its services to help STR owners differentiate their listings and tap into a growing demand for unique, personalized stays. We are thrilled to announce Hospitable’s partnership with Yhangry, which allows our hosts to offer their guests unforgettable private chef experiences as a zero-cost upsell and to earn commission on every booking.
In this episode, Siddhi shares what inspired her to start a marketplace for private chefs, why they decided to partner with STR managers to offer private chef experiences in vacation rentals, and how they are looking to expand. She also discusses the benefits of offering chefs as an amenity in short-term rentals and how it works for hosts and guests.
Press Play now to discover how offering in-home food experiences can help you enhance guest experience, earn extra income, and get more repeat bookings, and how to get started.
Do you prefer to read the highlights? We’ve got a summary of the key takeaways below.
How Yhangry Started
Siddhi Mittal was born in India, studied Computer Science at Columbia University, and worked as a trader at Barclays in London, where she met her co-founder Heinin, and that’s how Yhangry started.
“We both wanted to build something, and we saw there was a gap in the market where hospitality workers, like private chefs or chefs in restaurants, are paid very little, whereas people think private chefs are so bougie that they think they can't afford it,” Siddhi says. “We just wanted to bridge the gap, a platform that makes it so easy to hire a chef at the same cost as a restaurant for dinners or meal prep or whatever.”
Offering Chefs as an Amenity in Vacation Rentals
Last year, as Siddhi was looking through their data, she discovered that 55% of their bookings came through vacation rentals. That’s why they decided to partner with STR hosts and property managers, so they can offer the chefs at their homes. “Why, as a business, should we pay Facebook or Google to get this customer if we could just pay this back to a property manager?” Siddhi explains.
She notes that since then, they have grown to 130K+ units in the UK. Siddhi thinks their business is growing so fast because people want to create memories, and when they go on holiday, they don't want to sit at home – they want to do some cool stuff.
Siddhi emphasizes that offering experiential amenities, such as chefs, in your vacation rental can significantly improve guest satisfaction and help your property stand out. It’s “a huge competitive advantage” that can potentially bring in more bookings.
Siddhi also notes that offering private chef experiences in their properties comes with zero cost for hosts since Yhangry handles all logistics and allows them to earn extra income. “There's no cost, and if a customer books, they get paid for it. So it's inverse. You win. You make money.”
How Hosts Can Get Started
Hospitable hosts who want to offer Yhangry private chef experiences at their short-term rentals can visit hospitable.yhangry.com and fill out a form to provide their contact information. Yhangry will give you a unique affiliate link that you can add to your emails, SMS comms, your website, or any other touchpoints across the customer journey.
“When the guest gets those comms, they just click on a link. That's it. We take care of the rest, and we can measure all the metrics and send them back to you,” Siddhi says.
What Does the Guest Journey Look Like?
When a guest visits the Yhangry website, they can get personalized menus and quotes from multiple chefs to compare. Guests can also chat with their chef via phone or messaging to customize the menu. When guests click to book, Yhangry takes the payments.
“Think of us as kind of Airbnb, but for chefs, where we will then take the payment so the customer is safe. Then on the day, the chef arrives and actually does everything—cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning up, and everything with the customer. We also send really adorable printed menu cards to add a little bit to the table,” Siddhi further explains.
How Much Can Hosts Earn?
Speaking about how much it costs to hire a chef on Yhangry, Siddhi says that in America, their AOVs are somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000. “You can book a chef for just one night for $500, for five people or six people, it's possible, but that's the AOV we see, which means you're getting 10 % of that for each booking. You could be getting $150 or $200, which is pretty sweet.”
As an example, Siddhi shares that one of their partners in the UK, who has 200 to 250 properties, earns between 3K to 30K a year.
About Yhangry’s Vision and Growth
Siddhi says they participated in Y Combinator, a prestigious startup program, in 2022. They spent the next two years scaling across the UK, then entered the vacation rental market, which went really well, and launched in the US this year. “It's been so crazy. We already have twice as many chefs as Airbnb does. We have a lot of organic demand coming through, so things are looking very exciting.”
Siddhi also shares their plans for the future. “For 2026, big plans will definitely be everywhere in the US. You will see us a lot. You won't be able to miss us. We will also be expanding in Europe and the Middle East in 2026. So quite ambitious with our international expansion, but we really believe our product is ready, the customer experience is excellent, and now it's just a matter of scaling this across different geos and languages to get it out to the people who would love to book this.”
Listen to the full episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast to learn more about Yhangry and how offering private chef experiences can help you stand out and attract more guests.
