About Chef Danny Kievit
Danny Kievit is a born and raised Austinite who trained at the Culinary Academy of Austin and built his restaurant career working at some of Austin’s most established kitchens — Jeffery’s, Truluck’s, Castle Hill Café, Reeds Supper Club, and Moonshine Patio Bar and Grill. In December 2019 he founded Leave It to Kievit, a luxury private chef and experiential dining company based in Austin. The business specializes in bespoke private dining experiences ranging from intimate dinners to elaborate multi-course tasting menus for high-end clients and world travelers. He is a regular guest chef at the Lake Austin Spa Resort and has been featured on a major streaming platform. His Instagram is @leaveittokievit.
Episode Overview
The private chef space looks glamorous from the outside — cooking for high-end clients, traveling to extraordinary locations, setting your own menu. What it actually requires is a very specific combination of culinary skill, business instinct, client management, and brand identity that most restaurant-trained chefs are never taught. In this episode, André Natera sits down with Danny Kievit to break down what it actually takes to build and sustain a private chef business from scratch.
Danny talks about how he transitioned from restaurant work into the private chef world, how he built trust with high-end clients through authenticity and consistency, and what it takes to turn a culinary identity into a premium brand. He covers the business side of running Leave It to Kievit, the challenges he faced early on, and what he has learned about entrepreneurship, burnout, and building a career outside the traditional kitchen ladder.
Links & Resources
Danny Kievit on Instagram: @leaveittokievit
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