New app will pair Phoenix foodies, chefs for in-home dining experience

PHOENIX — Food lovers in Phoenix will soon be able to get fresh, locally-grown meals prepared right in their own kitchen, thanks to a new smartphone app.

“Bites” is an app that allows users to hire local professional chefs to create meals for themselves or an event that they are hosting, like a party.

Users can browse through the app to pick an available chef and book them for a specific date and time.

Roza Ferdowsmakan, the app’s founder, said the chefs can also be culinary school students or homemaker cooks. The chefs can also list which local farms they work with to get their produce and other items.

“Those chefs turn around and support local growers, like urban farms, micro-farms, co-ops, backyard gardens, community gardens, edible landscapes, organic and family-owned small farms,” she said.

Ferdowsmakan said the app is more of an experiential dining app that is designed to take guests on a culinary adventure, rather than a catering app.

“The chef is not relegated to some corner of the kitchen where he or she is creating dishes for you and your guests are over in another section having a party,” she said.

Instead, chefs will show users the culture and where they got the ingredients as they prepare the food.

For example: “I got my eggplant from Maya’s Farm, and this is what Maya has going on right now with her crop rotations. And I got these micro-greens from an urban farm on 24st and Indian School,” she said.

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