Think of it as the Uber X of fine dining. Log on to the website, plug in your address, the time of the meal, number of guests and choose from a list of menus. For $39 a head and up ($9 for children), Kitchit Tonight sends a personal chef to your home to prepare a dinner for a few diners or a dozen.

“The chefs pick all the groceries, they prepare the food, they do all of the clean up—you don’t have to worry about all that,” says Emily Webb, spokeswoman for the Bay Area-based startup. “It’s not just about this incredible food, which is locally sourced and prepared just for you, it’s about using technology so you can connect with people you love.”

Come next week, Kitchit Tonight is expanding into the South Bay, launching service in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and Stanford.

“Opening Kitchit Tonight in the Peninsula feels like coming home,” said Brendan Marshall, the co-founder and CEO of Kitchit. “Kitchit started as a research project while attending Stanford University, so it’s exciting to come back to this community and share what we’ve built.”

In its earliest iteration four years ago, personal chef-on-demand Kitchit was a premium service charging $100 a head for dinner parties of 10 or more. After securing $7.5 million in venture funding last fall, the company cooked up a more affordable option, which Entrepreneur Magazine called “bespoke dining for the 99 percent.”

Kitchit chefs undergo background checks, make $30 an hour and tend to be recent culinary school graduates or moonlighting sous chefs. An executive chef based out of the company’s San Francisco headquarters curates the menus, which include starters, entrees and desserts. By narrowing menu selections, but still keeping veggie and gluten-free options, Kitchit was able to keep costs down.

Competing chef-on-demand services—like EatWith and Feastly—hire amateur chefs and organize supper-club gatherings to connect customers with groups of people they don’t know. Kitchit, however, hires only professional chefs, sends them to a home and lets the customer invite their own guests.

And unlike food-delivery apps, which bring ready-made meals to your doorstep, Kitchit emphasizes the social experience, Webb says.

“When I’m hosting a party, I know I don’t want to worry about the mess or spend all my time in the kitchen,” she says. “The chefs work with you to create this fun, memorable event.”

Kitchit Tonight
$39 per person. Meals must be scheduled in advance, or before 1pm for same-day service. www.kitchittonight.com.