Men Who Cook: 11 Gifts to Delight Your Favorite Chef

Why do I love men who cook?

Because truthfully: guys are so freaking hard to shop for. Including my guy, Steve. Cooking!

Well, paring. Expertly!

Admittedly: Some people are just hard to shop for. Still, when I get to Father’s Day or Steve’s or my son’s or brother’s bdays, I’m genuinely and consistently kinda flummoxed—in a way that I’m not with my daughter or sisters or female friends.

So I repeat: I love men who cook. Gift giving is just so damn much easier.

NOTE: These gifts are decidedly NOT gender exclusive. Any gift on these pages is equally great for anyone in your life who cooks.

HOWEVER, Father’s Day is a thing, and every year, I hear anguish from various folks: What do I get Dad/the father of my kids/my son/fill in your own blank here?

And whether your giftee is the executive chef in their particular household, a bread baker supreme, a grilling freak—or someone on the other end of the spectrum who wants to get better in the kitchen but has no idea where to start:

We got you covered.

Full Disclosure: Unless otherwise noted, these are affiliate links—meaning, if you buy, I get a portion of the sale toward the cost of running this site. Oh, also, you get a large dose of gratitude from moi, Nan, along with my partners in crime who help me keep Head Roam alive. Thank you in advance.

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Here, at a glance, you’ll find my favorite gifts for men who cook:

• YesChef subscription: The streaming service featuring world-class chefs
• The Chef and the Dish: international cooking classes in your kitchen
• The greatest knives EVER: Miyabi, which we get from Alchemy
• A gorgeous cutting board to go with the knives from Custom Cuts Woodworking
• One-of-a-kind baking spoons to stir your pots from Cave & Canopy
• The gourmet cookout delivery service: Cuisinery
• The spice subscription, with a new type of cuisine every month: Piquant Post
• The elegant, effortless spice storage system and the organic spices to complete it from Gneiss
• The perfect solution for mobile chefs: the Asmoke Portable Grill
• The Freebie and our Favorite Cooking App: Kitchen Stories
• The super cool home gardening system, Garden Tower

Let’s get those perfect gifts!

YesChef: The Streaming Service for Men who Cook (and Women, and non-Binary folks)

The Gift: A one-year subscription—or, even better, lifetime access—to YesChef, a premium online education platform for cooking.

The Hook: World-renowned chefs—Nancy Silverton, Dario Cecchini, Edward Lee, and Erez Komarovsky—kick off your subscription with hours of cooking lessons, complete with recipes and pointers that will truly level up cooking skills.

But Wait; There’s More: These first chefs are just the beginning of a group of superb culinary magicians from around the world whose cooking lessons are in the works: Francis Mallman of Patagonia and Uruguay, Southern restaurateur Sean Brock, Afro-Caribbean genius Kwame Onwuachi, and the Peruvian powerhouse team of Pia León and Virgilio Martinez.

Who Will ESPECIALLY love it: If your chef has ever sat rapt in front of the Netflix series Chef’s Table, they’ll be in heaven. The videos are that beautiful and story-driven, and you’ll see superb technique on display.

Here’s a sneak peek of my favorite chef so far, Erez Komarovsky, who is funny AF:

Bonus: It’s a true pleasure to watch these great chefs learn from other, non-famous ones: Nancy Silverton stands in awe as an Italian woman who’s made tagliatelle in her own restaurant for years takes her to school. Erez Komarovsky stops to chat with street vendors and cafe owners about what makes their food unique. Edward Lee goes to a backyard barbecue of a Louisville community leader and home chef. Clearly, he’s having a ball.

Want to go bigger? This is a great combo gift with a Miyabi knife.

Private Cooking Classes from The Chef and The Dish

But what if….your chef prefers a hands-on, one-on-one class? Or a group class?

We LOVE The Chef and The Dish. So does Forbes, which calls the classes “Ingenious Gifts for Travelers.”

The Gift: All sorts of Cooking Gifts for Dad (or whoever your favorite chef is), including a Private Online Cooking Class for Dad.

The Hook: The Chef and The Dish teachers are from, literally, all over the world. This screen grab gives you the smallest taste—see what we did?—of what’s on offer.

And we haven’t even scrolled down to the mouthwatering pix featuring New England-style lobster, Hungarian Goulash, Peruvian Ceviche, Vietnamese Pho and Banh Mi—those are just the beginning.

In fact, the hardest part is making the choice. You may want to buy more than one class. And maybe stipulate that it’s a gift meant to be shared with the giver….

One thing we particularly love: you don’t have to worry that your teacher is experimenting on you. Each class with The Chef & The Dish undergoes a Certified Testing process with the company’s Certified Testers.

The Absolute Best Knife You Can Buy: Miyabi

I worked in restaurant kitchens for a few years.

And one thing every craftsperson/artisan knows: The right tools make all the difference.

The Gift: My brother got me this Miyabi Santoko hybrid knife/cleaver, and I love it with the heat of a thousand suns.

The Hook: It’s perfectly balanced and sharp as hell. In fact, when I call my bro, he doesn’t say, “Hi.” He says, “Did you cut yourself?”

Ha! He knows better. Dull knives are dangerous.

Sharp knives are POWER.

I especially love the birchwood handle on my knife. That said, the primary thing is the blade shape: So easy to angle properly for good cutting, and then you scoop everything up on it.

Thing is, I love it so much, I’ll just be happy if you get one. I don’t need to get a—forgive me—cut. (And if you do, please let me know where in the comments below.)

The Perfect Cutting Board from Custom Cuts Woodworking

A great knife is even greater when paired with a great cutting board. Like the one you see under my dinner fixin’s, in the pics above and, with the flip side of the Miyabi knife, here:

The Gift: Custom Cuts Woodworking creates these gorgeous boards in Oregon; unfortunately, they’re not currently taking orders. (I’ll get a vendor in here soon, promise.)

Here’s how they make ’em:

Full disclosure: These are made by a family member, my brother’s step-grandson. This is hilarious to me because I think my brother is way too young to be a grandpa.

Anyway, when I received mine, I told my bro, “It’s too beautiful. I’m afraid to use it.”

He snorted. “Dear, sister. Use it like you stole it.”

The Hook: These are built for choppin’. Here’s mine, after 6 months of use. This is quality, I tell ya. Granted, I’m using a Miyabi knife and not hacking the hell out of it.

But I’m going to take for granted that if you invest in one of these, you’re serious enough to have also invested in a decent knife.

Just please: Don’t drop it on your foot. Sucker’s heavy.

NOTE: This is NOT an affiliate link; your purchase supports the artist!

The Perfect Mixing Spoons from Cave and Canopy

Handmade kitchen supplies are addictive, I tell ya.

The Gift: We love these spoons, completely hand-carved by our friend Cale—surrounded by adorable pouches handmade by his partner, Ashleh.

The Hook: We love the spoons with the flattish edges, which scrape the sides of the bowls more powerfully than a rubber spatula, and without the awful noise of metal on metal or glass.

And the handles just feel great in your hand.

Check out Cale and his partner Ashleh’s shop, Cave and Canopy, to buy one. And maybe grab some of Ashleh’s beautiful jewelry while you’re at it. 100% handmade.

NOTE: This is NOT an affiliate link; your purchase supports the artist!

The Awesome Ingredient Supplier: Cuisinery

Ok, you’ve figured out how to up the technique and equipment games for the men who cook (and all the other cooks) in your life.

But…what are they gonna cook?

Let’s say your chef has watched the YesChef barbecue episode with Ed Lee. Or has had a spectacular grilling lesson from The Chef and the Dish.

Now, said chef just wants to have everything in one box for an amazing BBQ.

Your chef is all set—if you’ve ordered this package from Cuisinery,

Then again, your chef may not be that big on meat—or snails. You can still class things up big time with the French breakfast box. Ooh la la! (That’s French for “yum.”)

Cuddle up in bed with this and a sexy French movie—we’re huge fans of the wonderfully weird Delicatessan, by the way (trailer at the jump).

Cuisinery has tons of cool food items in addition if you choose to go a la carte.

For Spice Guys: A New Spice Collection Each Month from Piquant Post

Maybe your chef is an improviser, constantly looking for new flavors.

In which case, we think he/she/they will totally dig becoming a subscriber to Piquant Post.

The Gift: It’s such a cool thing: Freshly ground, small batch spice blends with delicious recipes from a new region come every month in a subscription box.

The Hook: You can try the club out for just a month for a small payment. If you love it, you can re-up, saving money on a 6-month subscription, and saving even more on a full-year subscription.

And when you use this link to get a Piquant Post subscription, you get an additional discount.

Bonus: Use your spice box’s theme as a way to plan for a virtual trip.

Let’s say you get a Latin-themed collection. Follow the chimichurri recipe, using Piquant Post’s special blend. Grab one of my favorite movies, which just happens to be from Argentina, where chimichurri is an art form. The movie is Wild Tales (trailer at the link), and it is freaking brilliant and hilarious.

Date night just got delicious and a little more special.

For Spice Guys 2: Beautiful Spice Storage from Gneiss

Whether or not you opt for the Piquant Post subscription, whether your chef already has a big collection, or a medium collection that keeps growing, or is just getting started:

The Gift: To organize however many or few spices you have, we are all over the gorgeous, eco-friendly system from Gneiss.

Here’s a peek at some of their offerings:

The Hook: Their website says it best: “Gneiss Spice (‘Nice Spice’) magnetic jars take your cluttered spice situation and transform it into a functional work of art. Our magnetic jars are stored on a fridge or steel backsplash for easy access—no more digging through cabinets! With spices in sights, you’ll use them often, becoming a more adventurous and confident chef.”

What We Love: All spices are organic, and the system is specifically designed to be zero waste.

Even Better: Gneiss donate 5% of profits to charities fighting food insecurity. 

But we also love that you can buy as many (or few) jars as you need, and completely customize your experience.

Men Who Cook AND Drive: The Asmoke Portable Grill

Many, many of the men who cook that I know have a fire thing. One could argue fire is a Guy Thing, though one would rightly be challenged. Obviously, fire is not gender exclusive.

The Gift: That said, if you just happen to need to get something for a grill guy, we think ASmoke Portable Grills are pretty darn near perfect.

The Hook: Even though your griller in chief may be all set up in the back yard, the portable grills can go anywhere. On a boat. Camping. To a party at someone else’s house. Wherever.

Bonus: The flavor from applewood smoked pellets combined with ease of use is awesome enough.

Combine that with the fact that ASmoke Grills double as smokers.

AND: They come in colors!! Red, blue, green, and black.

If you really get into it, they have plenty of backyard-friendly models as well.

Hank Hill, who sells propane and propane products, would not approve of these gifts. Then again, what, besides propane, does that guy approve of?

The Freebie and Our Favorite App: Kitchen Stories

The App: We love Kitchen Stories.

It is seriously the only cooking app you need.

And It’s FREE.

You can go to the website, or just search “kitchen stories” wherever you get your apps.

The Hook: This one is especially great if your chef likes international food. We also love that the videos are actually helpful and step-by-step, as opposed to flashy reels thrown together for instagram.

Bonus: Once you sign in, you can easily create your own recipes and cookbooks right inside the app—and then share them with your buds and the world at large.

For the Chef/Gardener/Planet Lover: The Garden Tower Growing System

Maybe your favorite chef got into kitchen gardening during the pandemic.

Maybe s/he/they realized that gardening is kinda, well, not easy.

The Gift: Enter the fabulous folks from The Garden Tower Project. Here, a super deluxe edition (they have smaller ones to start with):

I am totally going to make a hash of what they do if I try to explain it myself, so here, direct from their web site (with TONS of beautifully presented info on what they do):

“The original Garden Tower® container gardening system made it possible for home gardeners to create their own compost, practice vermiculture with their own worms, and reap the benefits (literally!) of 50 plants in one barrel-shaped planter. Its buit-in water-recycling system created active nutrient transparent to the plants roots much like a hydroponic watering system — boosting plant growth with nutrient-packed recycled water at a fraction of the cost and size of a full-scale garden.”

The Hook: As a former NYC resident, I (Nan) especially love how space efficient it is.

Granted, this is an international company and the shipping’s a little pricy. But you know what? Once you get growing, you’ll save way more than the shipping fee in a very short time.

Because your veggies and herbs? Are now FREE.

What is your favorite gift for men, or for that matter, anyone who cooks? Please share in the comments below.

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