Long hours on your feet, sweating over a hot stove and dealing with bizarre requests from demanding employers – the life of a private chef hardly screams glamour.
While your top clients sit at the table you’ve set, enjoying the expensive wine you’ve poured and the gourmet food you’ve lovingly prepared, you’re stuck in the kitchen, eating their leftovers and doing the dishes.
But that’s no longer the case, as chefs to the rich and famous, it seems, have had enough of hiding behind the strings of their aprons and want a piece of the spotlight for themselves.
Private chefs meet celebrities, are invited to the most exclusive parties and have their own fan base on social media and are quickly becoming the new rock stars.
Andrea Zagatti is one of them. The 32-year-old, who lives in London, has lost count of the number of VIP clients he has worked for – from musicians to politicians, actors to models – and says his job has introduced him to a “crazy world of celebrities’.
“I spent weekends with Justin Bieber and Kayne West, cooked dinner for the Royals at Blenheim Palace and made dinner for Obama and Trump,” he says. “I take care of Jay Z.” [who famously employs a chef just to cook him chicken wings] every time he comes to Britain.’
Andrea, born in Italy, freshly graduated from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, left Gordon Ramsay’s two-Michelin-starred London restaurant after two weeks (“They paid me £1.88 an hour; I wanted more,” he explains) and started as a private chef.
By chance, he bumped into Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters on the street, convinced him to let him cook for him – and soon the musician introduced Andrea to all his rich friends.
Celebrity chef Chloe Crampton, 35, is enjoying the perks that come with her role, including partying with music mogul Simon Cowell
“When you work for these types of people, you become part of their extravagant lives,” says the chef. ‘I remember cooking for a celebrity in Switzerland who wanted fresh turbot on New Year’s Eve. We had two days’ notice and had to fly him in by helicopter at a cost of £18,000 per fish.
‘For some dinners you might spend £5,000 on truffle, or £500,000 on a single bottle of vintage wine. I once threw a dinner party for ten people with a budget of £4.5 million. If you’re their boss, whatever they want, you take care of it, no questions asked.”
Thanks to his lucrative work and his new top friends, Andrea has built something of a business empire – as well as a devoted fan base on social media.
More than 300,000 people follow his @mr.zagatti Instagram account, which he uses to launch a caviar company (prices start at £250), a luxury sandwich company (which made headlines in 2021 with its £50 steak sandwich , wrapped in 24-carat edible gold) and, most recently, a global concierge company with a 400-person waiting list called VZ Bespoke.
“Celebrities tag me in their stories, so my online following has grown as a result,” he says. ‘These days I mainly do restaurant reviews. I’ve eaten at about 4,500 restaurants – I have an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them. It’s a privileged life, but I work hard for it.’
Chloe Crampton knows this all too well. As Simon Cowell’s private chef in Los Angeles, 35-year-old Chloe from London started out as an actress but was inspired by her Italian grandmother to follow her passion for cooking – and has never looked back.
Today she has 92,000 followers on her @chloeskitchen Instagram account, where she also shares recipes for her website, appears on celebrity podcasts and collaborates with top fashion, home and food brands. She is currently working on her own cookbook.
‘It can certainly be a demanding job: fast; long hours; meeting high expectations; and keeping up with a lot of changes,” she says of her work. ‘It’s a daily achievement. We make art. And no day is the same.’
Chloe has built a social media following with her recipes, with around 92,000 Instagram fans
Chloe is loyal to Cowell and his family, who she worked for for four years as he supported her through her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in 2021. When he’s out of town, she works for other big names – but she’s not . may say who.
Even at the height of her field, her days are long (sometimes from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.), but the rewards can be enormous. Indeed, Chloe’s social media resembles that of a glamorous influencer: idyllic beach photos, trips to Hawaii, Florida and Cabo and posing with Cowell himself by a glittering turquoise pool.
“We become part of these celebrities’ families so people can get a glimpse into the glamor of it all,” she says. ‘What people don’t realize is the routine behind it. But if you have the stamina, there is a lot of fun to be had.”
And it’s not just the lifestyle that makes working as a private chef so attractive – there’s also the salary. Chloe earns up to £1,000 a day, giving her an income that rivals that of a banker.
‘Private chefs can start from £95,000 [a year] and I would never accept anything lower than that, says Corey Belle Earling, 42, a chef from Florida who has worked for sports stars like Tiger Woods and Serena Williams.
‘There is a lot of money to be made here. I’ve seen jobs now hiring for £150,000 [a year]. You cook for the elite and provide a luxurious service, which allows you to demand more.’
Kelvin Fernandez, chef to Jennifer Lopez and the New York Yankees baseball team, charges £1,200 a day for his services and caters dinners for £150 per person.
The 39-year-old chef from New York, who has 124,000 Instagram followers on his @chefkelvin account and 10,000 YouTube subscribers, has become known in the industry for bringing good food to the most unorthodox locations.
Corey Belle Earling, 42, has provided meals for Tiger Woods and Serena Williams and says fellow VIP chefs should demand as much as possible for their profession
‘Private chefs can start from £95,000 [a year] and I would never accept anything lower than that,” she says
“I think the craziest event we hosted was a three-course event for 30 people from a sneaker store fitting room,” he says. ‘No problems, only solutions is my motto.’
Now, he says, celebrities come to him for work – and not the other way around. “I have reached out to many celebrities through social media, as well as sponsorship campaigns and collaborations that have helped me and my career. I think now more than ever chefs are the new celebrities. Social media gives you the platform to become whatever you want.”
At just 26, Atlanta Thompson has seen this first-hand: with 47,000 followers on Instagram (where she is @the_fussyfoodie_) and another 17,000 on TikTok (@atlanta_thompson), the Oxfordshire chef spends her working life between Spain, Isle of Wight and the Alps.
Making a name for herself on social media, she says, has led to lucrative work, with customers contacting her after seeing her delectable dishes online.
“My second professional cooking job was assisting a chef on the new Indiana Jones movie,” she explains. ‘One of the best things about life as a private chef is the traveling and the changing days; that suits my personality well.’
There is undeniably something very rock ‘n’ roll about the world of private taxation. With a unique insight into the private lives of celebrities and a free ticket to accompany them around the world, it’s certainly more interesting than your average 9-to-5.
And Grant Bird’s day job is even more of a rock star than most: He’s a tour chef for musicians like Beyonce, Ariana Grande and John Legend.
Grant, 38, from south-east London, trained at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant and got into his work by chance – when he bumped into the head of catering at a Rihanna gig in 2011 and got a job at the MTV Music Awards of that year.
More than a decade later, he is the pastry chef of choice for top star tours around the world. He leads a team that feeds 600 backstage staff and supports musicians and VIPs. Beyonce, he reveals, has a soft spot for his wasabi, black sesame and white chocolate cookies, while Kelly Clarkson loves chocolate mousse made with avocado – and Ariana Grande eats dozens of deep-fried Oreos.
“There are so many dietary preferences to get a handle on,” says Grant. ‘And you just have to go with them. The worst I’ve encountered is someone who won’t eat fruit picked from a tree; it must have fallen freely. Celebrities can be a bit OTT, but that’s the business I’m in.’
But life on the road is not as glamorous as it seems, he points out. “It may look great, but all I’m doing is moving from parking lot to parking lot,” he explains. ‘We get off the tour bus at 4am, build a kitchen and then breakfast starts at 7am. You have lunch from 12pm to 4pm, dinner from 5pm to 8.30pm, then the show starts at 9pm so we start disassembly before the bus leaves again at 2am. Most of the time you don’t see sunlight.’
With so much effort behind the scenes, it seems only right that private chefs get some of the star power from their celebrity clients.
As Andrea Zagatti puts it, “I never imagined I would live this kind of life when I was younger. So I’m determined to make the most of it – and enjoy every minute of it.’