Home Bistro Review

UPDATED September 30. 2024.
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Home Bistro went a long way from a small New York company to one of the largest businesses in the area. In 2009, it was acquired by its biggest competitor, DineWise. Together, they created a restaurant-grade gourmet meal delivery system that covers the contiguous United States. 

The meal delivery service is famous for its top-quality, innovative, chef-prepared meals that it delivers straight to the doors of its many satisfied patrons. Keep reading our Home Bistro review to learn more about the company and determine whether it is the right fit for your dietary needs and preferences. 

Home Bistro Review Homepage

How Home Bistro Works

The team behind Home Bistro wants to change the way Americans eat by focusing on two crucial aspects of every successful diet –personal food preferences and the overall meal preparation process. Unlike many other meal delivery services that have a pre-set list of programs for you to choose from, Home Bistro offers a wide range of individual meals and meal combos that you can order at your convenience.

You can freely browse the entire menu or shop by dietary preference and get as many ready-made meals as you want, whenever you need them. The meals are freshly made with natural ingredients, delivered frozen, and take mere minutes to reheat.

Apart from being a convenient home dining solution, Home Bistro meals also make great gifts for all kinds of occasions.  In case you want to treat your friends to a couple of meals of their choice, you can order Home Bistro gift certificates, with values ranging from $25 to $1,000.

While you do not need a subscription in order to shop at Home Bistro, you can subscribe if you prefer regular deliveries. Should you choose to subscribe, you can receive your favorite meals and combos every 1, 2, 3 or 4 weeks and modify, pause or cancel your subscription anytime. Furthermore, you get to save 5% in comparison to one-off purchases.

If you have any questions, a live chat is available during business hours – from 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern Standard Time. You can also contact the company’s customer support staff via the official email. While researching for this Home Bistro review, we talked to the support staff a few times and were pleasantly surprised by how professional and friendly they were.  

Home Bistro’s official FAQ section, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. Some of the important questions are answered, yes, but many of them are left out. We definitely hope Home Bistro will improve this aspect of its service in the future.

Home Bistro Review How It Works

What Makes Home Bistro Different

Home Bistro challenges the notion that food is just an industry. That’s why the company brings a combination of skill, ethics, and innovation into preparing the finest meals available with the freshest ingredients. 

One of its major advantages is that its kitchen is run by a Certified Executive Chef, which is a certificate presented by the American Culinary Federation and one of the highest standards a chef can receive. Fun fact – only 1/4 of 1% of chefs in America earn this distinction. 

Home Bistro is also committed to providing the best possible dietary programs for families, no matter if they’re solely interested in fantastic gourmet cuisine or looking for a healthy meal plan that can help them lose some weight and maintain the results long-term. 

With Home Bistro, you don’t need to concern yourself with grocery shopping ever again. The company sources only 100% natural ingredients from suppliers as close to home as possible. It constantly improves its menus and introduces different flavors to make each dish as satisfying and heart-healthy as possible. Its relationship with renowned meat suppliers allows it to use poultry, beef, and pork of the highest possible quality. 

On top of everything, the CEO of Home Bistro offers his unconditional guarantee that every customer will be satisfied with its food. You can replace any item you’re not happy with or receive a refund, depending on the circumstances. In his own words – “If you don’t love our new food – then it’s on me.” 

home-bistro-ho-we-are

Meals and Recipes

Home Bistro meal options
Diabetes
For Families
For Seniors
For Singles
Gluten-Free
Paleo
Weight Loss

As you might have deduced from our Home Bistro review, this is a company that’s very passionate about food. All the dishes are prepared for excellence and the quality remains even throughout the entire menu. Furthermore, you have a wide range of options to choose from every time you order.

At all times, the service offers nearly 40 individual meals and about 20 meal combos. In addition to meals and combos, you can purchase SUPERBowls, the company’s simple, delicious, microwave-ready solutions for a healthy lunch on the go.

With individual meals, you can filter the available dishes by nearly 20 criteria and browse meals by main ingredients or suitability for different diets. As far as special diet options go, you can order diabetic-friendly, cancer support, dairy-free, gluten-free, heart-friendly, low-carb, lower-sodium, Paleo, and vegetarian meals. You get to try out gourmet delights like Hanger Steak With Romesco Sauce, Moroccan Ratatouille With Peri Peri Sauce, and Roasted Harissa Shrimp With Gratin.

If you opt for meal combos, you can get 6, 7, 10, 12 or 14 meals at once. You can opt for best sellers, luxurious dinners for two, lunch and dinner combos, Mediterranean delights, Body Shred meals, and meal combos for special diets, like Paleo, diabetes-friendly, heart-healthy, and vegetarian.  In case you want to trust the Home Bistro team with designing your menu, you can opt for Chef’s Choice combos and enjoy a varied diet based on top chef favorites.

Home Bistro Chef Specials Ayesha Curry

Home Bistro is one of the few meal delivery services offering special top chef meals. Ayesha Curry, Richard Blais, and MasterChef Claudia Sandoval will make your home feel like a five-star restaurant. And what’s best about these special offers is that there’s always some discount or coupon making them more affordable than regular meals. This means you can try these dishes risk-free and discover a whole new world of culinary experiences.

Finally, SUPERBowls come in packs of 7 and 14 and they are suitable for diabetics and individuals on lower-sodium diets. SUPERBowls come in the form of comforting pastas, stir-fries, soups, chilis, and more.

The recipes are pretty creative. Along with the more classic meals, you can also find innovative meal options based on exotic cuisines. These include either revamped classics with an awesome new twist or something completely original. 

Home Bistro Review Menu

Portion Size And Nutrition Facts

Home Bistro meals normally yield a single serving, so they can work for singles, couples, and families alike. The standard serving size is 14 ounces. The average calorie count is 500 to 700 calories per serving, although some items can have as few as 300 calories. More than half of the menu items contain fewer than 700 mg of sodium per serving and you can always find at least 2 dozen dishes that are low in carbs. The same goes for diabetes-friendly and gluten-free meals.

Heating And Storage Tips

Since Home Bistro meals arrive frozen, all you need to do is make enough room for them in your freezer and consume them within a few months. As we mentioned earlier in this Home Bistro review, you can reheat your meals in minutes, thawed or frozen, depending on your preferences.

You can use a microwave or reheat your meals on a stovetop. If reheating in a microwave, you should pierce the pouches and reheat them for a minute at a time, until heated through. This is the faster method. However, the service recommends reheating meals on a stovetop by placing the pouches in a pot of boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes. Each meal comes with specific reheating instructions, so you cannot go wrong.

Pricing

One of the best features that Home Bistro offers is the chance to order as many individual dishes as you want/need. All individual prepared meals are priced per serving. 

The cost of individual meals starts at $14.00 and goes up to $28.99. The prices of meal combos and packs start at $101.99 (the price of a 6-meal pack) and go up to $322.99 for the 14-serving Table For Two™ Dinner Collection. The SUPERBowls cost $85.99 and $149.99 for 7 and 14 Lunch Bowls, respectively. Of course, if you subscribe, you get a 5% discount on every order.

Home-Bistro pricing

Home Bistro also features a rewards system where you can accumulate points to get discounts on your meals, packs, and combos. The points-to-discount table goes as follows:

  • 1,000 points – $10 off
  • 4,000 points – $25 off
  • 5,000 points – 20% off
  • 7,500 points – $50 off
  • 14,000 points – $100 off
  • 30,000 points – $250 off
  • 50,000 points – $500 off

You get 1,000 points just by creating an account, which means your first order comes with an automatic $10 discount. Every $1 you spend with Home Bistro gets you 10 points. What’s more, you receive 2,000 points for referring a friend. You also get 1,000 points as a birthday gift every year.

Individual meals
Number of servingsLowest priceHighest price
1$14.00$28.99
Meal combos
Number of servingsTotal pricePrice per serving
6 - 14$101.99 - $322.99$16.99 - $23.07
SUPERBowls
Number of servingsTotal pricePrice per serving
7 - 14$85.99 - $149.99$10.71 - $12.28

Delivery Areas

home bistro delivery

Just like many other meal delivery services, Home Bistro offers nationwide home delivery. Its delivery map covers all parts of the contiguous United States, meaning Alaska and Hawaii are unavailable. Deliveries are made Wednesday through Saturday.

All of the orders are shipped by FedEx and marked as “Driver Release,” which means that the package is delivered to your address and left at any exterior door, with no signature required. Most orders ship within 1 to 3 business days upon receipt and individual orders cannot be shipped to 2 different addresses. Home Bistro doesn’t ship to P.O. boxes. 

Home Bistro Pros And Cons

To make sure Home Bistro meets all your standards and expectations, it is important to know its biggest advantages and disadvantages. With a short overview of its pros and cons, you can easily decide if Home Bistro is the right meal delivery service for you.

Pros
  • Certified Executive Chef heads the kitchen
  • 50+ menu items to choose from
  • Restaurant-grade food
  • Chicken is antibiotic-free, vegetarian-fed, and cage-free
  • Beef is vegetarian-fed without growth hormones or antibiotics
  • Very competent and friendly customer support staff

Cons

  • Low on pre-made plans
  • More expensive than the competition

Sample Dishes

Home Bistro provides its happy customers with finger-licking chef-prepared meals that can suit virtually any taste. With this meal delivery service, you can enjoy restaurant-grade dishes in the comfort of your own home without breaking the bank. Take a look at our curated selection of Home Bistro meals to get a glimpse of the delights that await you on its menu.

Bottom Line

Home Bistro’s entire business model is dedicated to providing its customers with the best possible dining experience one can receive from a fresh-frozen meal delivery service.  

The company’s chefs handpick ingredients for the ideal flavor and the entire kitchen team operates under a Certified Executive Chef. Although pricey, the company still manages to attract plenty of customers by maintaining its high standards of quality in terms of both nutrition and taste.

We hope our Home Bistro review gave you enough relevant information to make an informed choice whether to give this company a shot or keep on searching for your perfect meal delivery service. 


User Reviews (39)

Home Bistro is rated 3.5/5, based on 39 user reviews.

The Home Bistro reviews listed below reflect the opinions and experiences of real users and are in no way influenced by the service reviewed here. Before publishing each review, our team checks whether it was submitted by an actual user in an effort to prevent false or spammy reviews.

  1. | March 9, 2021

    I’d never buy these meals again. Way too much garlic, the chicken was dry, the vegetables weren’t even edible and it is pricey. Don’t waste your money.

  2. | March 10, 2020

    I don’t know any meal delivery service that offers such a wide range of special diet plan options for people with diabetes, cancer, and food allergies. My mom has diabetes and often orders from home bistro when she doesn’t feel well enough to cook for her and dad and it really means a lot since I we don’t live in the same city and I’m not able to help out as much as I would want to!

  3. | March 7, 2020

    One time I’ve ordered 7 meals to have for dinners but I didn’t pick them myself, didn’t have enough time to go through the entire meny, so I’ve ordered best sellers instead. Let’s just say I liked 4/7, which is my fault for not taking the time to decide, but I’ve expected more. The next time I’ve hand picked each dish myself and it was the best!

  4. | March 5, 2020

    Almost 350$ for 14 average dinners! It’s 3 dinners for the family of four. I’ve placed an order when my wife and I were going on a holiday and wanted to leave prepared food for our kids. They didn’t even bother to heat it up more than two times and there was a bunch left when we came back. We tried it a couple of times and were not impressed at all! The kids would better spend that money if we left it for them to buy their own food!

  5. | December 28, 2019

    The reward system is a rip off! I have to order hundreds of dollars to get only a 10% discount, ridiculous!

  6. | November 16, 2019

    I used the microwave to reheat my meals and they don’t taste very good which came as a shock to me considering all the praises I’ve read about this place. And not until I’ve started heating the meals slowly in the pot did I noticed the difference. They should stop advertising the microwave heating though, it ruined several lunches for me.

  7. | August 4, 2019

    I’m a diabetic and I’m glad to say that I have plenty of options at home bistro and that there are dishes specifically designed for diabetics so I don’t have to order same dishes over and over again!

  8. | April 19, 2019

    Superbowls are my dinners now! Yoou just heat them up and you have a nice healthy meal ready to go in seconds. Awesome!

  9. | February 23, 2019

    I asked for a refund cuz I really wasn’t happy with my meal and home bistro returned my money without any delay.

  10. | January 6, 2019

    Love the fact that my meals are prepared by the top of the industry chefs and that I can pick my meals by myself and not according to someone’s program. One other thing is that I can eat whatever seems the most delicious and don’t worry about gaining weight because it is prepared to be healthy or make me loose weight.

  11. | September 13, 2018

    I’ve subscribed for a four week plan it it was the best thing I’ve done in a long while! Decided to treat myself and eat good food for a month and not think about buying groceries and running home only to be forced to spend a good chunk of my free time above the stove.

  12. | June 25, 2018

    Poor quality meals – meat like rubber, broccoli no flavor and mushy, rice stuck in a blob like glue. All meals flavorless- poor customer service. They clearly do not want feedback on poor quality- don’t waste your money- you would be better off with take out fast food. And by the way I am a healthcare provider that generally councils patients against fast food.

  13. | May 14, 2018

    The available cookbooks use simple ingredients I’ve actually heard about but the meal choices are always elegant and delicious, so I can even prepare them for my friends without feeling like I’m serving them scrambled eggs.

  14. | May 12, 2018

    Excellent meal delivery for people who try to steer clear of meat as much as possible but still enjoy a good steak from time to time. I’m no cooking wizard by any stretch of the imagination, so the professional service tips I got with every delivery were more than welcome.

  15. | May 5, 2018

    A great fusion of rustic and modern recipes really allows me to express my current mood through the meals I eat and serve to my partner after a hard day’s work. The wine suggestions are also a neat little addition that saves a lot of time to wine ignoramuses like me

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