BUSINESS PROFILE

This isn't quite catering. But it's not at all like trying to whip up dinner for 12 while guests wander through the kitchen looking for more wine and hors d'oeuvres.

Chef John Hinkle will cook for you, in your kitchen, for your guests. He'll make whatever you like, or he'll come up with his own menus.

"I like to cook anything as long as I make it from scratch," he says.

He'll go to the grocery store -- actually, he'll insist on it.

"Good food is dictated by the ingredients," says Hinkle. "You can't make something out of nothing."

And when it's all over, Hinkle will even help clean up.

That's Hinkle's new business: Chef de Maison.

Hinkle is an award-winning chef who has run his own resorts on the Klamath River and, most recently, was executive chef in charge of the kitchen at the Black Sheep in Ashland. He was 1996 American Culinary Federation Chef of the Year.

He says that after 20 years in the restaurant business -- years of 13-hour work days and fast-paced schedules -- he is looking for an easier pace.

"The restaurant business will kill you quick," he says.

And he hopes to have some fun in the process.

"That's the important thing. I want it to be fun. I'm not a stodgy chef."

But he is a business-minded chef. Hinkle's new endeavor outside an established restaurant marries his cooking skills and his knowledge of restaurant cash flow. In addition to offering himself as a private cook for hire, he is offering business consulting services at $50 an hour to restaurant owners and folks thinking about opening a restaurant.

He calls the consulting part of the business Jefferson Culinary Services.

Hinkle launched Chef de Maison and Jefferson Culinary Services after leaving the Black Sheep in October. He had help set up the popular restaurant, and his break was an amicable one.

As the Black Sheep's executive chef he was responsible for all sorts of food decisions that can make or break a restaurant. Too many times, he says, restaurateurs blend their business decision into a recipe for disaster.

More so than other entrepreneurs, those launching restaurants face high failure rates.

"Lots of people go into the restaurant business without a clue about what to do," Hinkle says.

Menus don't make full use of ingredients and give diners too few choices. Costs are underestimated and business volume poorly predicted.

"Usually, restaurants are opened on shoestrings and designed for disaster," he says.

Hinkle figures both parts of his business will take a while to establish themselves, especially Chef De Maison.

"Basically, I think the business is going to be built up through word of mouth."