About Sous Chef

Sous Chef hand-picks the best from the world’s kitchens. Food-lovers find uncommonly good taste in all that Sous Chef brings, from ingredients and gifts, to tableware and cookware. We're an independent family company and have inspired home cooks and professional chefs since 2012.

Life is better with a sous-chef – so let us be yours! We are here to inspire you, a cook or chef, to create your best dishes every day

If you don’t love something let us know, we always make it right. That’s made us the UK’s #1 most loved foodie store!

Ingredients & cookware sourced by experts

We source ingredients, cookware and tableware from around the world – and deliver them to your kitchens. You imagine how bokkeumbap will taste in South Korea. Yet it might be years until you can travel there. With Sous Chef you’ll find out tomorrow.

We obsess over quality. We only sell artisanal products if we know they're great. Our team has 50+ years of sourcing experience. We’ve tasted at least 10 times the number of products that we sell!

It’s not one order, it’s the next 100 years

Sous Chef is a female-founded and family business. Nicola, our founder, asked husband Nick to join forces early on. Together they've grown the business, side-by-side with a fantastic team.

It feels like days since we were a start-up, but now we’re looking ahead to the next 100 years...

  • Our deliveries are carbon neutral via DPD.
  • We were one of the first ecommerce companies to only use paper packaging in our parcels.
  • Throughout the website you’ll find stories about where people are doing better: songbird friendly olive oil, spice traders who guarantee good prices for their pepper farmers years into the future, and prioritise producers where we have trusted relationships.
  • And every time you shop at Sous Chef, we give towards the United Nations sustainable development goals. See our impact here.

... so that in the future, cooking is a joy for everyone.

“Cooking in a Michelin-starred kitchen, I tasted the most incredible ingredients and wanted to make them more widely available. So Sous Chef was born.” Nicola, Sous Chef Founder

What We're About

Extraordinary range, inspiration, quality & flavour, expertise, and making sure you're extremely happy.

Quality

Not all food is created equal. You might not learn to prepare a 60-minute dish in just 5 minutes, and we don’t have any simple hacks for turning instant noodles into a five course meal. But we do offer the ingredients to help you make your best meals yet.

Range

Travel the world from your kitchen. Discover the bowls from your favourite ramen restaurant in Toyko, to handcrafted Dutch fermentation crocks. Walk the aisle of a Korean or Chinese supermarket, seeing the brands you’d see at home in that country. Taste not just one variety of pepper, but 20+.

Service

We’re only doing a good job if you are delighted! If you have any questions – however big or small – please get in touch, and a real person, knowledgeable about food and ingredients will answer the phone or reply personally to help you out. We’ll always make it right.



Expertise

Our team has tasted everything on the website – plus thousands of other products we have chosen not to sell. We’ve visited suppliers, met with producers, and speak to the people who craft products every single day. We’re real experts in specialty food. If you need help, take a look at our buyers’ guides here or get in touch.

Sustainability

There is no plastic filler inside your boxes. We give used cartons from our warehouse to other businesses to reuse – only recycling the remainder. Short-dated food is collected by City Harvest to share with vulnerable people across London. And no food travels to us by air – some products even arriving by sailboat.

Ethical Sourcing

We don't sell foie gras, and we often ask suppliers of meat products to improve their sourcing. Our extra virgin olive oils use ethical farming methods that don’t harm birds (you’ll be surprised how many do!). We aim to avoid products that contain unnecessary palm oil and list ingredients on every product page so that our customers can make an informed choice. There are huge complexities here and we reflect on them a lot.

Meet The Founders

Meet The Founders

Working in a Michelin-starred kitchen, I had been cooking with amazing ingredients and wanted to make more widely available. So Sous Chef was born.

Every month we add hundreds of new products, inspired by leading restaurant menus, chefs we speak to, and our travels to producers around the world.

We are still an independent family business with a passion for all things food. We hope you'll join us as Sous Chef continues its journey - and that you'll take us with you on your own culinary adventures.

Nicola & Nick

  • The Sous Chef Story

    The independent family business was started in 2012, with the desire to make high-quality, authentic world ingredients available to everyone. Meet our founders, our team, and find out how Sous Chef was born.

  • Bureau Of Taste

    The Bureau of Taste is where you'll find recipes, interviews with chefs, how-to articles and shopping guides. Always wanted to try a world ingredient, but not sure where to start? Find inspiration in the Bureau of Taste.

  • Our Team of Writers

    Have a look at our team of expert writers who have years of experience!