Frequently asked.

In the functional sense — yes. The meals arrive fully cooked, portioned, chilled, and ready to reheat. You open the box, warm a plate, and eat. In every other sense — no. This isn't factory-assembled food with a chef's name on the label. Every dish is cooked personally by Julian in his Zetland kitchen on Sunday morning and hand-delivered across inner Sydney the same afternoon. If that's meal prep, it's meal prep with a decade of fine dining behind every plate.

Those services are logistics companies with kitchens attached. We're a kitchen with a delivery van attached. The food is cooked in a single chef-run kitchen in Zetland, the same day you eat it, by the person who wrote the recipe. There is no factory, no commissary, no overnight interstate truck, and no freezer in the operation. The trade-offs: we only deliver across inner Sydney on Sundays, and the menu changes every week instead of offering a fixed supermarket-style catalogue. If you're choosing on headline price alone, we won't be the cheapest. If you're choosing on what's actually in the box, we'd rather be judged on that.

Yes. Every dish is fully cooked when it leaves the kitchen. Ten minutes in an oven or over a stovetop and it's on the plate — no chopping, no assembly. We chose the ready-to-eat format over cook-from-scratch kits deliberately: when Julian finishes a dish on Sunday morning, it's finished the way he'd send it out of a restaurant pass. Reheating preserves that. Handing you ingredients and a recipe card does not.

You pick a box size (6, 10, 12, 16 or 20 meals), choose your meals from this week's menu, and we cook and deliver them fresh every Sunday. The subscription rebuilds automatically each week — but you always have until Thursday noon to change your meals, skip the week, or cancel. No lock-in, ever.

Thursday 12:00 PM (Sydney time) for that Sunday's cook. This gives Julian time to order produce fresh from the markets on Friday. Anything after Thursday noon rolls into next week's box.

Reply to your order confirmation email before Thursday noon any week — Julian will action it personally. No fees, no lock-in, no questions asked. A self-serve account portal is coming soon.

Absolutely. A fresh menu drops every Monday and you can mix and match from whatever Julian is cooking that week, right up until Thursday noon.

Free Sunday delivery within roughly 6 km of Newtown — that covers most of the Inner West, City, Surry Hills, Alexandria, Zetland, Waterloo, Glebe, Balmain, Leichhardt, Marrickville and surrounding suburbs. If you're just outside, contact us — we sometimes make exceptions. Pickup from Zetland is always free for any order size.

Sunday afternoon. You'll receive an SMS with your delivery window on the day. All meals are cooked Sunday morning and chilled for delivery — not frozen.

Possibly — it depends on the week and the address. Email us your suburb and we'll let you know. Pickup from Zetland is always available as an alternative.

Up to 5 days refrigerated. Most meals reheat in 2–3 minutes in the microwave, or in a covered pan over medium heat for 6–8 minutes. Each container comes with a dated label so there's no guesswork.

Yes, most of them freeze well for up to a month. Braises and curries freeze best — cream-based sauces and delicate fish like salmon are better eaten within the 5-day fridge window.

Each meal is a proper main — roughly 450–550g depending on the dish. Protein-forward meals typically contain 35–50g of protein. If you're cooking for someone with a bigger appetite, consider a larger box.

Grass-fed beef and lamb from certified Australian producers, free-range chicken, wild-caught Australian fish where possible, and fruit and vegetables from Sydney Markets, picked fresh on Friday. Nothing frozen, nothing pre-made.

Yes. All containers are recyclable and BPA-free. The outer box is curbside recyclable cardboard.

Many meals are naturally gluten-free, dairy-free, low-carb or vegetarian — filter tags on the menu page show what fits each diet.

Add the allergy to the notes field at checkout, or email Julian directly before ordering. Our kitchen isn't certified allergen-free, so we'll be straight with you about whether we can safely cater.

All payments are processed securely by Stripe. Your card details are never stored on our servers. Subscriptions charge automatically each Thursday after the cutoff, and you'll get an email receipt immediately.

Yes — at checkout, switch from "Weekly Subscription" to "One-Time Order". One-time orders don't get the 10% subscriber discount but otherwise work exactly the same way.

Gift cards are launching shortly — add your email on the gift cards page and we'll let you know the moment they're ready.

Yes — first subscription orders get 25% off with code WELCOME25. Enter it at checkout.

Julian Luczyc-Wyhowski, our founder and executive chef, spent more than ten years in fine dining kitchens across Europe and Sydney before starting Chef In De Box in his own kitchen in Zetland. Every recipe is his. Read the full story.