College Chefs prepare meals for sororities

Assistant chef Brandon Varney cooked an eggplant parmesan dish from scratch Sunday afternoon for the Phi Mu sorority.  

Varney works for College Chefs, a food service company that aims to provide distinct food experiences for sororities and fraternities. The company offers personal chefs that cook all meals from scratch for the fraternity and sorority members, said Dave Tarrant, general manager of business operations.

College Chefs works to supply food that one wouldn’t normally find in a greek house, Tarrant said.

“Our chefs make everything the right way,” Tarrant said. “We try to make as much from scratch as we can. We try to eliminate processed foods and only have the healthy ones. We’ve found immense success in that platform.”

Currently, the company has four clients at IU: Alpha Delta Pi, Phi Mu, Alpha Omicron Pi and Delta Gamma sororities.

Each house has its own professionally trained chef and staff. Depending on the size of the house, there may also be a sous chef and additional assistants, Tarrant said.

“This is all from a chef’s perspective,” Tarrant said. “Many chefs are trained in the classics. They understand the science of cooking. While cooks might follow a recipe, a chef writes it himself.”

Some of their menu items include Italian braised chicken, teriyaki salmon and all-beef pigs in a blanket. However, the chefs also prepare traditional meals such as grilled cheese, Tarrant said.

“Even if we do something as simple as grilled cheese and tomato soup, we make sure everything is from scratch,” Tarrant said. “The soup will be homemade, and the bread will be fresh.”

Each chapter can decide what type of meal plan they would like, though providing meals Monday through Friday is a minimum, Tarrant said.

Some chapters can opt to have chefs prepare meals every day of the week.

Though the company mainly provides lunch and dinner, a chapter can also ask for a continental breakfast from their chef.

The pricing for each chapter depends on the type of meal plan they have asked for, Tarrant said.

“Sometimes we only take into consideration members who live at the actual house, so we can do it on a per-person basis,” Tarrant said. “Sometimes we can also create a meal plan based on the budget of the house.”

College Chefs has clients at many different colleges, including Purdue University and Butler University.

The chefs make an effort to form a relationship with their clients, Tarrant said.

“They can pick and choose what they want,” Tarrant said. “They can pick everything they want down to the day they want service. If the chapter really wants a certain meal, we can always provide that.”

Each chapter has a weekly menu created specifically for it.

College Chefs has aimed to be conscious of the sisters’ dietary needs, junior and Phi Mu Housing Manager Caroline Dusenberry said.

“We always have gluten-free and vegetarian options,” Dusenberry said. “We’ve had a lot of food allergies lately, so they do a good job of accommodating the menu for us.”

Grilled cheese with tomato soup and Tex-Mex style food such as tacos and quesadillas are popular with the Phi Mu members, Dusenberry said.

“We had a recipe for Phi Mu cookies that we had lost,” Dusenberry said. “Once we found it, we gave it to our chef, and they made the cookies for us.”

This is Phi Mu’s third semester with College Chefs. Dusenberry said Phi Mu will look to renew its contract for the next academic year when the contract expires at the end of the spring semester.

“The biggest key for us is being on top and promising a high-end product,” Tarrant said. “We take pride in the constant care and management of both our chefs and our clients.”

Follow reporter Tori Lawhorn on Twitter @ToriLawhorn.