Picture this: you come home from a long day, or better yet, a big celebration, and the whole house smells like a holiday dinner at your grandmother's. Except you didn't cook a thing. That is the experience Jake Smith, the chef and owner of Lets Eat LLC, is building one Triangle kitchen at a time. He is not running a restaurant. He is bringing the restaurant to you.

Who They Are

Lets Eat LLC is a personal chef service based in the Triangle, founded and run by chef Jake Smith. Jake offers weekly meal prep, private dinner parties, and small events for up to 30 guests, all customized around a client's tastes, schedule, and dietary needs.

What sets a personal chef apart from a caterer or a restaurant is proximity. Jake works inside a client's own kitchen, turning it into what he describes as a mini working restaurant, right in the comfort of home. There is no dining room to drive to and no menu limited to what a kitchen happened to prep that day. The menu is built around the client, every time.

Jake brings over a decade of culinary experience to that work, built across restaurants, bakeries, and hotels before he made the leap to personal cheffing. That range shows up in the food: comfort, precision, and a clear sense of what makes a meal feel personal rather than transactional.

Their Origin Story

Jake's passion for food started at 16. What began as a love of cooking and a knack for bringing people together around a table turned into a full culinary education: an Associate's degree in Culinary Arts from Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, followed by a Bachelor's degree in Food Business Management, with a concentration in Mediterranean Cuisine, from The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.

After twelve years working in restaurants, bakeries, and hotels, Jake wanted to take his relationship with food and people to a different level. Personal cheffing was that pivot: a way to bring restaurant-caliber experience directly into people's homes. Lets Eat LLC launched in October of 2025.

A three-month study abroad stint in Barcelona, Spain shaped a lot of what Jake cooks today. Immersed in Mediterranean food culture, he came away with a deep appreciation for fresh ingredients, simple technique, and the idea that a meal's real job is bringing people together around the table. Mediterranean cuisine has become one of his specialties ever since, alongside classic American cuisine with a gourmet, elevated twist. Two dishes come up again and again as client favorites: slow-braised beef short ribs and slow-roasted beef tenderloin.

What They Do Today

Lets Eat LLC offers three core services, each built to make exceptional food convenient without losing the personal touch:

Weekly Meal Prep | Fully customizable around each client's tastes, dietary needs, and lifestyle. A typical service includes five freshly prepared meals, each packaged, labeled, and placed in the refrigerator with simple reheating instructions, so dinner is ready whenever it is needed.

Private Dinner Parties | A complete three-course dining experience featuring an appetizer, entree, and dessert, served plated or buffet-style depending on the event.

Small Private Events | The same three-course, fully customized approach scaled for gatherings of up to 30 guests.

For both dinner parties and events, clients can choose from a signature menu available year-round or a seasonal menu built around the freshest local ingredients, and every menu can be adjusted for dietary restrictions, allergies, or specific dishes a client has in mind.

The process starts with a consultation, by phone or in person, covering the menu, guest count, date and time, and any allergies or dietary needs. Jake follows up about a week before the event to confirm details and answer last-minute questions, and shares his direct contact information so clients can reach him anytime beforehand. On the day of, he typically arrives three to four hours ahead of the first course to handle setup and prep, so guests can relax while he manages the kitchen. Meal prep clients go through a similar consultation process: preferences, meal count, schedule, and dietary goals, followed by a custom menu sent for review before anything gets cooked.

Cooking Without Limits

Every client's needs are different, and Jake treats dietary restrictions as a design challenge rather than a limitation. Food allergies, gluten-free, vegetarian, keto, or any other dietary lifestyle: he can modify an existing recipe or build something new from scratch to fit. The goal is a menu everyone at the table can genuinely enjoy, without anyone sacrificing flavor.

That same attention to detail carries into where the food comes from. Jake sources locally whenever he can, making regular trips to Triangle farmers markets, with the Holly Springs farmers market as a favorite. He also relies on Lees Fresh Market in Benson, NC, which butchers everything on site, for what he considers the best quality meat he has found.

Being a personal chef also changes the chef's role itself. In a restaurant, the chef usually stays behind the scenes. In someone's home, Jake is part of the evening: getting to know clients and their guests, hearing their stories, and being present for the moments they are celebrating. That personal connection, he says, is one of the things that makes the work so rewarding. The goal for every client is to leave remembering not just the food, but the experience and hospitality that came with it.

Last month, that idea played out in a way Jake still thinks about. He was hired to cook for a client's daughter's graduation celebration, and the family trusted him enough to let himself into their home to start dinner while they were still at the ceremony. When the client walked in and caught the smell of dinner in progress, she stopped in the doorway and said, "Oh my God... this smells exactly like my aunt's and grandma's house when we celebrated the holidays. It's such a familiar smell, I feel like I'm walking into my grandmother's home." Jake calls it one of the greatest compliments he has ever received, and a reminder that food's real job is connecting people to the moments and the people they love.

Looking Ahead

Jake is currently finalizing his fall menu, built around seasonal dishes that showcase the best flavors of the season. He is also developing hands-on cooking classes, where guests will get to learn new techniques, build kitchen confidence, and enjoy a fun, interactive culinary experience alongside him.

Why Raleigh

Jake grew up in the Triangle, and running his business here is personal. He calls it an honor and a privilege to operate in the community that helped shape who he is. The support for local business, the welcoming communities, and the growth the Triangle has seen over the past several years have created real opportunity, and Jake sees himself as grateful to be a small part of that growth.

It shows up in the small choices: the farmers market trip to Holly Springs, the butcher counter in Benson, the client list that spans Raleigh to Chapel Hill. It is a business built from the region it serves, one dinner at a time.

Plan Your Visit

Service area: Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Apex, Fuquay-Varina, Holly Springs, Chapel Hill, and Morrisville
Booking: At least two weeks in advance, to allow time for a consultation, a personalized menu, and sourcing the freshest ingredients
Contact: Phone or text at 919-610-6885, or reach out via Facebook Messenger
Facebook: facebook.com/p/Lets-Eat-LLC-61584254128817

Ready for a dinner party, a graduation celebration, or a week of meals that taste like someone actually cooked them? Reach out to Jake and get on the calendar.

Lets Eat LLC is a proud Best of Raleigh Partner. Follow @thebestofraleigh for more spotlights on the people, places, and businesses building this city's next chapter.