“Imagine a company that brings the restaurant experience to your home,” Debra Freeman, co-founder of Culinary Breakdown, explains to me over a beer at jm Curley.

It’s a Monday night and the bar is still busy – as young professionals, looking to take the edge off, pile in for an after-work beer. The two founders of Culinary Breakdown, a local company that runs in-home cooking classes, pop-up dinners, and private chef experiences, are looking to share more about their culinary venture in Boston.

The company, recently featured on Chronicle, defines itself as offering customers a series of collective culinary experiences.

“Over the years, some of the kitchens I’ve trained in have offered cooking classes to patrons,” Chef Douglass Williams, co-founder of Culinary Breakdown, tells me. “I observed people coming to the restaurant to learn but never saw them get to touch, or interact with the food. I wanted to change that. I wanted to make cooking classes interactive, social, memorable and bring it to people in their own environments.”

Chef Williams, formerly of Coppa and the now shuttered Radius Restaurant in Boston, has worked in kitchens around the world – including in NYC and in Paris. But despite having worked for several 2-Michelin Star restaurants, he explains that the best gratification he receives is from teaching his students a new skill. “It’s the whole reason why Culinary Breakdown exists and why I love what I do,” Williams adds.

For those who haven’t yet experienced or heard of Culinary Breakdown, the company isn’t a catering or an on-demand delivery service. “It’s a transformative culinary experience to have in the comfort of your own home,” Freeman explains. “We don’t just deliver a meal or a cooking class – we deliver an experience.”

Freeman, who also happens to be a marketing professional at Arnold Worldwide (and a fantastic cook, herself) credits Chef Williams as the “star of the show.” “Doug’s ability to not just teach but do it in a lively and entertaining way that blows people’s minds, is why what we offer is so different than anything else out there,” she adds.

“We started small,” Chef Williams tells me. “Loyal clients began to tell their friends and send us more business, one client even said ‘it’s the best night in’ he’d ever had. We’ve been thriving on word of mouth since the beginning.”

In addition to in-home cooking classes, Culinary Breakdown also offers exclusive pop-up dinners, which showcase Chef Williams’ culinary creativity in an exclusive setting.

Thus far, the company has partnered with Restoration Resources in the South End to produce two successful pop-up dinners (pictured below). And it looks as though Culinary Breakdown’s next big venture is already in the works. “It’s top secret,” Chef Williams tells me.

In the meantime, the company will keep doing what it’s doing. “We’ll continue to have fun cooking with our clients, pushing the food in new directions and getting involved in the community,” the chef adds.

To watch Culinary Breakdown teach an in-home cooking class, check out the video below – and to learn more about the local company, check their website, here.

All images courtesy of Culinary Breakdown/Emily Knudsen