Chef Craig

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About Chef Craig

Chef Craig Nassar

The Practical Chef was founded in 2007 by Craig Nassar. After more than 2 decades of long hours and intense work in New York City, Chef Craig headed west to Tucson Arizona and there he launched The Practical Chef – personal chef services & catering.

Chef Craig has been in the industry for more than 25 years. He was trained and is a graduate of the world-renowned Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY and is a Certified Executive Chef. While in New York, he quickly discovered his passion for catering private and corporate events of all sizes and budgets.

Chef Craig has cooked for such celebrities as Jackie O, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher, Muhammad Ali, Jamie Lee Curtis, Telly Savalas, Peter Falk and Executive Chef for the cast of the original Tony & Tina’s Wedding Interactive Broadway Show.

Chef Craig appeared every Monday for 2 years on Tucson’s KVOA 4pm news segment “Let’s Make A Meal” and is a contributing author on Evite.com

Yelp Reviews

  Craig is a true professional that you can trust. He takes pride in his work and will go above and beyond to make sure your event exceeds your expectation and impresses your guests.

I hired Craig and his team to cater my wedding, which took place at a remote venue about 2 hours outside of Tucson. The event was a challenge because not only was it remote, but I was also planning the event from the other side of the country. That meant I didn't have the benefit of meeting with caterers in person, trying food in advance, and undertaking all the traditional steps of finding vendors for a wedding.

I knew I had found the right person to handle the event from the very first call. He was cordial, asked the right questions, clearly communicated his requirements, and was honest. He didn't disappear or go radio silent after I signed the contract and he was communicative all the way through the planning process and leading up to the event.

About two months before the event, he graciously drove the two hours out to the venue to conduct a property walk-through with me when I was in town for the holidays. He refused additional reimbursement for his time or gas money to get out to the venue.

In the last month leading up to the event, I communicated to Craig that a few of my guests had some allergies, and one was vegan. This was a quaint wedding of only about 20 people, so that meant coming up with some original alternatives for those few individuals. Furthermore, I hired him to prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day of the wedding, which exasperated those challenges. On the day of the event, he had a custom vegan-friendly dish prepared for all three meals and took extraordinary precautions to prevent allergen cross-contamination.

Every single meal was punctual, artfully presented, and delicious. This is not your standard wedding food or copy-and-paste banquet meal. Craig is extraordinarily talented and was continuously present throughout each meal to greet guests and present his dishes. Every guest was impressed and raving about the food.

In addition to the tremendous food, Craig also helped to arrange servers for the event and even helped bring additional tables for the event.

Craig is just a genuinely good person and you cannot do better than hiring him for your next event.

Austin A.
3/12/2022

  Craig is fantastic. Incredibly versatile - we worked together on some fairly high pressure corporate events with some high maintenance, perfectionist and picky executives. He never flinched, not even once, even though I tossed him some wacky curveballs from time to time.
He never even showed that he was stressed - a consummate professional and one of my favorite vendors to work with.

Everything Craig has ever done for me has come out fantastic and gets rave reviews.

Highly, highly recommend.

Heather W.
1/02/2020

  Awesome! We hired Chef Craig and his crew for a birthday dinner party for 10. He and his team are true professionals. Everything was perfect. Food was incredible (we had southwest chicken salad, sea bass, prime filet, asparagus, and quite possibly the best mashed potatoes I've ever had). In addition to the main meal, we had lobster quesadillas, shrimp cocktail and a signature margarita to start with. All the clean up was taken care of. Will definitely be working with him again.

Sarah S.
2/19/2018

  Big praise for The Practical Chef! Our whole family (14) was visiting Tucson over the weekend and my brother hired him for a family party last night and it was fantastic! Every detail was covered from set up to clean up - and the FOOD! WOW...the food was simply perfect...from appetizers to dessert. We're all still talking about it today and will be for a long time to come for sure. We are from Seattle so all arrangements were made over phone/email, and every detail was as expected and better.
Highly recommend Chef Craig and his fabulous sous chef!!

Ann K.
11/14/2016

  Craig catered my daughter's baby shower and he did a spectacular job! All the food was delicious. We had several appetizers passed around and then a great variety of main dishes. In addition, Craig took care of all the cleanup. Altogether, he helped make it a perfect event!

Leasa C.
7/09/2016

  I googled "personal chef tucson" to find someone as a Christmas gift for my Mom and her boyfriend and found Chef Craig. We emailed, got it set up. You never know what you're going to get on the internet... Craig & Sous Chef Mike did the dinner for mom & 6 guests. When she called the next day she couldn't stop gushing. "Unbelievable" she said. The food was better than she's had in the top restaurants in Tucson, Craig and Mike were both friendly and professional at the same time, the whole experience was, as she put it, "just tops". By the end of the night Mom's guests were impressed, happy, and full. So this seems like a "home run" to me. Thanks Craig! You've given Mom something to talk about for years. P.S. I'd say the whole thing was very reasonably priced, especially for what they got.

RV A.
3/07/2016

Chef Craig

The Practical Chef

craig.practicalchef@gmail.com

520-403-0605

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