When you move to a new country, two things people miss almost immediately: family, and food.
Relationships you eventually rebuild. Food from back home is harder to replace. A few restaurants help at the margins, but going regularly gets expensive. Cooking traditional dishes from scratch every week takes time and skill most people don’t have on a Tuesday.
The expat food gap
Barcelona has sizeable communities from all over — Russian, Ukrainian, Latin American, Indian, Middle Eastern, and more. And the pattern repeats:
- People crave the food of their own culture.
- A handful of good restaurants exist. Going every week gets costly.
- Busy families don’t have time to cook dishes properly — the ones that actually require time.
There’s an obvious gap: authentic, home-style food, delivered in a modern, convenient way. Priced for weekly, not special-occasion.
From private chef to cultural tracks
For years we’ve been running a private-chef arrangement in Barcelona — cooking custom meal plans for my family and a small group of households. As we started thinking about opening it up, one idea kept coming back: dedicated menu tracks for specific cultures.
Imagine a Russian family in Barcelona being able to subscribe to traditional soups, salads, and mains — cooked by someone who understands the cuisine, delivered fresh, ready to heat. The same applied to other communities as we grow.
The goal isn’t fusion. It’s closer to what your grandmother would cook, adapted to modern logistics.
How a cultural track works
The mechanics are the same as every other plan: cooked fresh, delivered in a morning or evening window, stored in your fridge. What changes is the content.
- Menus built around traditional dishes from your culture.
- Seasonings that feel like home — not the softened-for-tourists version.
- Optional health adjustments — less oil, more vegetables, higher protein — without losing the essence.
- Custom to your household — portions, dietary restrictions, kid-friendly versions, allergies.
- Weekly plans typically €25–35 per day per person.
Why this matters
Food is one of the fastest ways to feel grounded in a new place. Having access to your own cuisine weekly helps:
- Kids stay connected to their roots.
- Hosting visiting family becomes easier.
- One parent stops being the default weekly cook of a cuisine that takes hours to do properly.
Looking for our first cultural track
Before we invest in separate menus and dedicated chefs, we want to find the communities most interested. If you’re part of a strong cultural community in Barcelona and this resonates, fill in the form. Tell us:
- Which cuisine you’d like first.
- How many meals per week you’d realistically order.
- Roughly how many families in your circle might be interested.
If we find a critical mass, we’ll pilot a dedicated cultural track. Russian first on the list, but not the only one.