An hour before a recent private cooking class, I received a message from chef and independent contractor Meenu Bhasin. One of the children in attendance had a severe egg allergy. Two of the recipes she planned called for eggs.
“They said, if you want to cancel, we understand,” Bhasin told Business Insider. “But I have no intention of doing so.”
With no staff available to help, she opened ChatGPT, entered all the ingredients she had on hand, and asked her to come up with two easy egg-free recipes for toddlers. “It arrived safely,” she said. “Before ChatGPT, that would have been stressful.”
This is one of the many ways Bhasin and another chef, Melanie Underwood of Nourish & Gather, are using generative AI to support behind-the-scenes operations of their solo culinary venture.
Tailor the client experience with generative AI
Bhasin, who has owned a culinary company in the Bay Area for more than 15 years, spends much of her time preparing for her classes, creating menus that accommodate a unique combination of dietary restrictions, preferences, and kitchen constraints.
Since he started using ChatGPT about a year and a half ago, Bhasin told Business Insider that the process has become more streamlined.
Bhasin uses AI for ideas when exchanging ingredients. BI’s Casey Clifford
Bassin said she may receive emails from groups with a wide range of dietary needs and preferences, from pescatarians to gluten-free, so she has to create an experience that works for everyone. “It’s like, ‘Oh my god, ChatGPT, what can I teach this group?'” she says.
She also plans to use ChatGPT to explore ingredient swaps, such as finding alternatives to sesame and soy sauce, which provide the salty, spicy, and sweet flavors essential to Asian cooking classes.
Still, Bhasin said the final decision was always hers. “It gives me the leg work, and then I have to actually go and use those ingredients and see if it actually tastes good.”
Underwood, a Westchester-based culinary educator and chef, said he uses AI to tailor standard program materials to different audiences.
When she recently ran a nutrition program for a group of eight men in her company, she asked Claude from Anthropic to help her reframe the content with a more data-driven lens. Underwood said he always double-checks the studies Claude cites before using them.
Reduce the burden of event management with AI
Underwood said generative AI has been particularly helpful in planning cooking workshops.
She uploads the recipe to Claude, tells him the number of participants, multiplies the recipe’s ingredients, and prompts him to list what equipment he needs to bring.
“This is really helpful for scalability because then you don’t have to actually sit down and write them all out,” Underwood said, adding that this allows him to focus more on the creative side of his work.
Underwood said AI has been helpful in planning workshops. Marissa Alper of BI
Bhasin said AI has allowed him to better manage communications with clients. This often requires multiple emails to each group before class. Generative AI helps organize thoughts about specific requests and draft difficult messages in a diplomatic tone, Bhasin added.
When five parents recently asked her to adapt an already advertised summer camp menu to suit their kids, she looked at ChatGPT before responding.
“ChatGPT asked me, ‘What is your goal here? Is it to make as much money as possible, or is it to teach a quality camp?'” she said.
With these questions in mind, Bhasin reconsidered her initial reasons for choosing the planned theme. Ultimately, she said, this process led to the decision not to change the menu in order to maintain the reputation of the class.
Bhasin said AI will never replace the human touch of a chef. BI’s Casey Clifford
AI-assisted future planning
The two solopreneurs have used AI as a thought partner to grow their business in ways they couldn’t have managed alone.
For Underwood, that meant turning a viral moment into a new revenue stream. When her Instagram reel generated 30 DMs in one day, she knew she had something in mind, but she didn’t know how to organize her ideas. “It allowed me to very strategically plan out the framework that I already had in my head and put it into writing that probably wouldn’t have been possible otherwise,” she said. The result was Family Table Reset, a six-month virtual program for parents that has become the core of her business ever since.
Bhasin said he expects AI’s recipe brainstorming support to generate enough ideas to teach two new recipes a week for the next 10 to 15 years.
Using AI, Underwood was able to capitalize on a viral social moment. Marissa Alper of BI
Even after experiencing the benefits of generative AI in their businesses, both chefs said there are food-specific tasks that AI simply cannot do. It’s about developing delicious recipes, tasting them, and educating them.
“AI will enhance my job. AI can never replace a chef,” Bhasin said. “I need the human touch. I need my vibrant personality. I need that passion. And that only comes through when you have a real person teaching the class.”