UcciCooking for people you don't know
You already know how to cook. What changes is not the recipe — it is everything around it. Seven things our first cooks learned, often the hard way.
Published 18 September 2026.
1. A portion is not what you think
At a table, people help themselves again. In a box, they cannot. An advertised portion has to satisfy someone who will have nothing else — almost always a third more than you imagine.
Leïla has weighed her portions since her third service. Not out of fussiness: two ladled servings can differ by half, and whoever gets the smaller one says nothing and never orders again.
2. Not everything travels
A dish that is perfect out of the oven can disappoint twenty minutes later. Chips, pastry, dressed salads, pasta in sauce: all traps.
What travels well: slow-cooked dishes, curries, tagines, gratins, soups — anything that has already spent time cooking. The rule of thumb: if it is better reheated the next day, it will handle twenty minutes in a bag.
3. The packaging is part of the dish
It is the first thing people see and often the only thing they photograph. A clean sealed container with a handwritten label giving the dish, date and time of preparation takes thirty seconds and changes everything.
Separate what needs separating. Sauce apart, fresh herbs apart, anything crisp apart. A second small box costs pennies and saves the meal.
4. The stated time is a promise
"Ready at 7pm" means ready at 7pm. Someone built their evening around it. Sonia, who worked in restaurants, puts it this way: "in a dining room the customer is waiting and knows it. Here they are standing outside your door in the rain."
Leave yourself margin. Say 7.30 for a dish ready at 7: nobody ever complained about food being available early.
5. Allergens cannot be guessed
You know there is butter in your mash. The person ordering does not. The fourteen common allergens go on every listing, and it is the one point Ucci does not bend on.
When someone reports a severe allergy, the right answer is not always yes. A home kitchen cannot guarantee the absence of traces — saying so plainly beats taking the risk.
6. Start small. Really small
Two portions for a first service. It sounds absurd, and it is exactly right. You will discover the packing time, the trips to the door, the late collections — across two orders, not eight.
Ibrahim started with three portions of couscous. He makes twelve now and refuses to go further: "past that it stops being my couscous and becomes production".
7. People come back for a person, not a dish
A note in the box, a reheating tip, the name of the spice they could not place. These cost nothing, and they are what brings people back.
Marek always slips in a handwritten line: "reheat gently for five minutes, add a squeeze of lemon if you have one". His repeat rate has no other explanation.
None of this needs a qualification or special equipment. Just some attention to what happens after the dish leaves your kitchen.