Technology in the Galley: Claude Code Is Your Operating System

The Problem with Chef Apps

Paprika. Mela. Notion templates. Recipe managers built by developers who've never worked a service. They all share the same flaw: they force your workflow into someone else's structure.

You don't need an app that stores recipes in its format. You need a system that generates menus the way you think, tracks guests the way you work, and produces provision lists that match how you actually shop. You need tools built by you, for you.

That's what Claude Code does.

What Is Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's command-line tool. You talk to it in plain English. It builds things. Not mockups — real, working tools that live on your laptop, work offline, and do exactly what you tell them to.

No coding experience needed. You describe what you want. Claude Code writes the code, creates the files, and tests everything. You review, adjust, iterate. Think of it as a developer who works for you, understands food, and never sleeps.

Case Study: The Menu Agent

Here's a real system built entirely with Claude Code, running on a working superyacht right now.

The Problem

Every charter: new guests, new restrictions, new preferences. You're writing menus by hand, formatting them in Word, printing PDFs that look amateur. Repeat guests get served the same dishes because you can't remember what you made six months ago. The preference sheet is a mess of notes in three different apps.

The Solution: A Complete Menu System

Built with Claude Code over a few sessions. No developer hired. No subscription. Here's what it does:

Cultural Touchstone Naming

The system enforces a rule: no generic cuisine names. Ever. Every menu gets a "Cultural Touchstone" — a name that triggers a place, a memory, a vibe.

Generic (Rejected)	Cultural Touchstone (Used)
Italian Dinner	Notte a Napoli
Mediterranean Lunch	Mediterranean White Night
Spanish Night	San Sebastián Pintxos Bar
Fried Chicken	Better-Than-KFC Night
Nordic Dinner	Noma Forest Kitchen

The system generates these automatically based on your ingredients and cuisine direction. You give it "sashimi-grade tuna, yuzu, shiso" and it comes back with "Tokyo Night Market" — not "Japanese Dinner."

What the Output Looks Like

This is what guests see. Clean, ingredient-first, no clutter. Two real examples from service:

Every protein sourced. Not "branzino" — "Wild sea bass." Not "chicken" — "Free-range chicken." The system enforces this. Guests see where their food comes from. Transparency built into the menu card.

The Nobu menu got the feedback: "Love Nobu lunch" — logged by the system, flagged as a favourite for that guest's next charter. That's the loop: generate, serve, capture, improve.

Production-Ready Output

The system generates LaTeX files that compile to print-ready PDFs. Each cuisine gets its own visual theme:

• Italian — Palatino font, terracotta and gold
• Greek/Mediterranean — Optima font, azure and white
• Asian — Avenir Bold, obsidian and red
• French — Didot font, noir and rouge
• Kids — playful typography, rainbow colors, emojis

File naming is automatic: 2026-01-26_Guests-Dinner_Notte-a-Napoli.pdf. Every menu archived, searchable, never lost.

The Guest Archive Agent

Built with Claude Code. Solves the repeat-guest problem permanently.

At the end of every charter, you run one command: close-trip. The system:

1. Archives every menu served during the trip
2. Updates guest preference profiles with what they loved, what they left
3. Builds an aggregated favorites index across all trips
4. Flags dishes to avoid for returning guests

Next time the Johnsons book? Pull their profile. The system knows Mrs. Johnson loved the Santorini Cliffside Dinner, didn't touch the octopus, asked for seconds on the lamb. It generates a new menu that respects history without repeating it.

What Else Claude Code Builds

Once you understand the principle — describe what you need, Claude Code builds it — the possibilities open up:

Every tool lives on your laptop. No subscriptions. No cloud dependencies. No app that gets acquired, pivots, and kills the feature you relied on.

AI as Brainstorming Partner

Beyond building tools, Claude is the sous chef that never sleeps. Real use cases:

The Blank Page Problem

Preference sheet lands at midnight: "Mediterranean-inspired, pescatarian, one guest celiac, loves wine pairing." You're staring at nothing.

Three options in 30 seconds. You pick elements from each, combine, make them yours. The AI solves the blank page. You make every creative decision.

Flavor Compound Matching

The AI draws from flavor databases and suggests saffron (shares safranal with fennel, limonene with blood orange), or black olive (oleic acid bridge, Mediterranean context). Connections you wouldn't make at 1am. You apply judgment. It expands possibilities.

Dietary Cross-Referencing

"Keto, allergic to tree nuts, doesn't like cilantro, loves Asian food." Instead of mentally filtering for 20 minutes, ask Claude to cross-reference restrictions against your planned menu and flag conflicts. It catches what you miss when you're exhausted.

The Only Other Tech Worth Your Space

Three pieces of hardware. Everything else is noise.

1. Bluetooth thermometer (ThermoWorks Signals) — Monitor proteins from the bridge deck. Alerts on your phone. Never overcook a $200 wagyu because the captain called you to the bridge.
2. Vacuum sealer + sous vide — Prep ahead, cook precisely, hold safely. The most important tech in any yacht galley.
3. Waterproof tablet — Mounted in galley. Recipe reference, provision lists, timers, preference sheets. Replace paper chaos.

What AI Can't Do

• Taste. No algorithm knows your salt level is right.
• Read the room. The owner's mood, the guest's energy, the timing of the next course. Human work.
• Handle chaos. Sea state changes, guest count doubles, freezer dies. Experience solves that.
• Source quality. No AI picks a better fish than a chef who knows what to look for.
• Replace relationships. Your fishmonger at Haulover knows your standards. No app replaces that.

The Workflow

Phase	Claude Code / AI	You
Preference sheet arrives	Parser extracts restrictions, flags conflicts	Read between the lines
Menu planning	Menu Agent generates themed options with pairings	Choose, refine, make it yours
Menu production	LaTeX compiles print-ready PDF menu cards	Review, approve, print
Provisioning	Calculator generates quantities & cost breakdown	Select quality at market
Cooking	Bluetooth thermometer monitors	Adjust by feel, taste, instinct
Service	Nothing. Put the phone away.	Everything. This is your moment.
Post-charter	Close-trip agent archives menus, updates guest profiles	Learn, adapt, improve

The Hard Truth

You're paying $5/month for Paprika to store recipes in a format you can't export. You're paying $10/month for Notion to build databases that don't talk to your menu planning. You're doing admin work that a machine should handle while your prep suffers.

Claude Code costs $20/month. It replaces all of it. Not with someone else's vision of what a chef needs — with yours. Your system, your rules, your workflow. Built in plain English. Running on your laptop. No internet required once it's built.

The best chefs in the world use every advantage available. The galley isn't a monastery. Build your tools. Save your brain for the craft.