The live cooking show behind Jamaica’s #1‑rated restaurant is now in Sarasota.
Invite Chef Alecia into your home for an award-winning five-course Jamaican dinner, cooked right in front of your guests.
From $200 per guest, minimum 6 guests, food included
What actually happens
Most private chefs work behind a closed door and send the food out. Chef Alecia does the opposite. She lays the ingredients on your counter, cooks in front of you, and tells you where every dish comes from.
Five courses over about three hours. Somewhere in the middle, people stop being guests and start asking questions.
Three ways to book
Signature
Five courses cooked in front of your guests over about three hours, ending with fruit flambé. She cooks, she talks, and by the end somebody’s holding a spoon. Six to thirty guests.
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy guests are welcome and well taken care of.
From $200 per guest · minimum 6 guests
Introductory rate through December 2026.
Quieter
One night or the whole week.
Chef Alecia shops, cooks and cleans up in your kitchen. Four courses for a single evening, or three nights and up with breakfast and lunch handled too. Minimum 4 guests for a single evening; two to twenty guests for three nights or more.
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy guests are welcome and well taken care of.
One night from $150 per guest, minimum 4 guests · three nights or more from $125 per night
Learn moreHands-on · Lunch
Learn to cook and spice like a Jamaican. Crack a coconut, make the cream, press the juice — then sit down to a three-course lunch you made yourself. Three hours, 11:00 to 2:00, in your kitchen. Five to ten guests.
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy guests are welcome and well taken care of.
From $150 per guest · minimum 5 guests
Learn moreThe food
Jerk chicken with the char it’s supposed to have. Coconut curried shrimp. Escovitch snapper under pickled onion and pepper. Crispy plantain cakes. Stir-fried vegetables. Roasted breadfruit and yam. Coconut cream pumpkin soup. Conch and Florida lobster when the season allows.
And juice — soursop, June plum, sorrel, tamarind, cucumber and ginger — pressed that afternoon, not poured from a bottle.
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy guests are welcome and well taken care of. Five courses of their own, cooked with the same care as everyone else’s. She did this for two decades for tables of thirty, and it is not an afterthought.
* Curried goat by request, at additional cost. It takes four hours and it’s worth it.
Who she is
Chef Alecia grew up on a family farm in the Jamaican hills, raised by her grandparents, cooking over woodfire before she cooked over anything else.
In 2005 she founded Zimbali Retreats in Negril. Its kitchen was ranked #1 in Jamaica on Tripadvisor for ten straight years. Hurricane Melissa ended the Jamaica chapter in October 2025. She landed in Sarasota with the same knives and the same recipes.
What guests said in Negril
Sarasota reviews will show up once she’s cooked her first dinners here. Until then, twenty years of them from Jamaica.
“Best ever vacation. Healthy, healing, nurturing for heart, soul, mind. This is the real deal for Jamaican backwoods 10-star cuisine.”
Rebecca W. · Tripadvisor · 2024
“Mark and Alecia are so knowledgeable and passionate. It is such a wonderful experience to take the farm tour, learn about what they grow, and then have it prepared in a 5-course meal right in front of you.”
Tripadvisor guest · 2024
“Zimbali is an experience that must be had. The live food show is everything — I’m happy I went.”
Tripadvisor guest · 2024
Press & recognition
Sarasota, Bradenton, Siesta Key, Longboat Key, Lido Key, Anna Maria Island, Lakewood Ranch, Venice, Osprey, Nokomis, and Palmetto.
Free travel within 25 miles of Sarasota; free within 75 miles for parties of ten or more.
Chef Alecia cooks a five-course Jamaican dinner in front of your guests over about three hours, ending with fruit flambé lit at the table. She talks the whole way through — where each dish comes from, why it's made that way — and by the end guests are usually at the counter with a spoon in hand. Six to thirty guests. From $200 per guest, minimum 6 guests.
Sarasota, Bradenton, Siesta Key, Longboat Key, Lido Key, Anna Maria Island, Lakewood Ranch, Venice, Osprey, Nokomis, and Palmetto. Free travel within 25 miles of Sarasota, and free anywhere within 75 miles for parties of ten or more — Tampa, St. Pete, Punta Gorda.
One evening: $150 per guest for 4-12 guests (minimum 4 guests), $200 per guest for 13-20 guests. Three nights or more: $125 per guest per night (2-12 guests) or $150 per guest per night (13-20). Add breakfast $45/guest, add lunch $40/guest. All food and fresh-pressed juices included.
Yes. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy guests are welcome and well taken care of — at no extra charge, and with no separate menu to ask for. Chef Alecia did this for two decades for tables of thirty; it is not an afterthought.
Fill out the inquiry form on the site. Chef Alecia (or Mark) will come back within one business day with a menu and quote. 30% deposit holds your date. Balance due 48 hours before, when she shops. PayPal (card or account) or Zelle. Cancel more than seven days out and you're refunded in full. Inside seven days, the deposit is non-refundable. Inside 48 hours, the booking is non-refundable — the food is already bought. Booking inside seven days? The full amount is due at booking, and it's non-refundable for the same reason.
Available by request at additional cost. It takes four hours and it's worth it.
Tell us about your evening
Alecia (or Mark, her husband and the guy who runs the calendar) will come back within one business day with a menu and a quote. If your date’s already booked, we’ll tell you.