Discussion Forums
for the
Personal Chef Industry

I would appreciate someone sharing what it is like to work as a personal chef. What would a typical day be like? You go into someone's kitchen and what happens? How much prep do you do before hand? Are your clients usually observing as you cook? What if they are late for dinner? What if they bring extra guests?

Can someone walk me through a typical event with a timeline?

Thank you!

A typical day starts off with menu & shopping list in hand, shopping for ingredients, and arriving to the client's house to prepare their meals. Prep work & preparing of meals are done in the client's kitchen, and no, usually, no one is there observing the actual cooking. These meals are cooled properly, then stored in their fridge, so they may heat & eat when they choose to. These meals are made in advance..up to 5 meals typically & the amount of servings are decided by the client (my minimum is 2 servings, with max being 4). Now that being said, the time frame spent, depends on the personal chef, how organized they are, how much prep is needed, etc etc. Typically preparing 5 meals can take 6-9 hours.

Some of us will cook for clients having dinner parties. Over 6 guests is when I hire an assistant, to help prep, serve & clean up...with all the actual cooking done by myself. The clients have a deadline for an actual headcount, & that leaves for no unexpected extra guests.

Hope this helps.
Chef Jackie

Hi Ken

It's interesting that you should ask about "A Day In The Life of a Personal Chef", especially since that is the name of the 2 hour training videotape we created 10 years ago, and that we have updated frequently.

We created the tape as part of our training material package, specifically for new personal chefs so they could witness the entire process from New Client Asssessment meeting to custom menu planning, to shopping, to preparing the classic personal chef service in the new client's home.
We wanted new personal chefs like you to be able to see just how "DOABLE" this is, and to be able to review the tape when necessary.
Thanks for the good question. Glad our title is so well known!
Happy Holiday!
Candy