My Head Chef

The problem

Most people open the fridge, look at what’s there, and either order takeout or make the same four things they always make. Not because they can’t cook — because the gap between ingredients and a recipe they actually want is too wide to bridge in the moment.

Recipe apps solve the wrong problem. They give you thousands of options, which is the opposite of helpful when you’re standing in a kitchen at 6pm. What’s useful is something that looks at what you have, understands what you’re in the mood for, and gives you one good answer.

That’s what My Head Chef does.

What it does

AI recipe generation. Tell the app what you want to cook, what ingredients you have, what to avoid, and any dietary restrictions. Powered by Google Gemini via Azure Functions, it returns a full recipe in seconds — not a list of matches from a database, but a recipe generated for your specific inputs. A “Surprise Me” mode generates something without specifying a dish, useful when you’re open to suggestions.

SousBot — voice-guided cooking. Once you have a recipe, SousBot reads it back to you step by step. Hands-free. Say “SousBot, next” and it advances without you touching the phone. Useful when your hands are covered in flour or your phone is across the counter. Audio is powered by Azure Cognitive Services. Premium users get enhanced voice personas and full voice control; free users get basic narration.

Smart shopping lists. Saved recipes generate shopping lists automatically. Items are categorized by aisle and duplicates are combined across multiple recipes. Lists sync across devices in real time for premium users.

Community kitchen. Users can share recipes to a community repository, browse what others have made, and rate submissions. Free users share up to 3 recipes per day; premium is unlimited.

Offline access. Saved recipes and shopping lists are available without an internet connection. Useful in basements, rural areas, and anywhere cell service is unreliable.

Freemium model

The app is free to download with no signup or credit card required. Free users get 10 recipe generations per day, up to 5 saved recipes, basic SousBot narration, and 3 daily community shares. The free tier is supported by AdMob banner ads.

Premium removes limits and ads, adds cloud backup via iCloud and Google Drive, enables full SousBot voice control with enhanced personas, and unlocks unlimited community sharing. Purchases are managed through native iOS and Android in-app purchase APIs.

Technical build

Built in React Native with Expo SDK 54, targeting iOS 15.1+ and Android 5.0+. The backend runs entirely on Azure Functions — serverless, pay-as-you-go, scales with usage without a standing server cost. Key integrations:

  • Google Gemini — recipe generation via the /ChatTrigger function
  • Azure Cognitive Services — text-to-speech for SousBot narration, cached in Azure Blob Storage
  • Firebase Analytics — anonymized usage tracking
  • Expo IAP — in-app purchase management
  • iCloud / Google Drive — cloud backup for premium users

Device identification uses hashed IDs with no personal data collected by default. GDPR and CCPA compliant. iOS ATT and Google UMP consent flows built in. WCAG 2.1 AA accessible as of v2.3.5.

Where it stands

Current version is 2.3.5, released January 2026. The app has shipped meaningful updates on a steady cadence: SousBot voice control launched in December 2025 (v2.3.0), cloud backup and privacy management in v2.1.0, and accessibility improvements most recently. The architecture — API-first, serverless backend, Expo for cross-platform delivery — was chosen to keep operating costs low at low volumes while scaling cleanly as the user base grows.

My Head Chef is live on the App Store and Google Play. Built and maintained by My Pub Marketing LLC.