First of all, if you're tired of working for someone else and want to become a private chef, start with friends who know your chef skills. Tell your friends to invite potential clients who use private chefs to dinners at which you can show off your culinary skills. If you begin this way in your private chef job, you will quickly build up a clientele of people looking for a single chef whom they can consistently use to wow their dinner guests.
Beyond becoming a private chef on your own, private chef and top chef jobs are available at certain companies who provide private chefs for their clients. If you don't want the hassle of owning your own private chef business, you might be interested in working for a private chef company. Private chef jobs in New York City (NYC), for example, are abundant these days and are available for the taking if you have the right skills. But that brings up the question of what will be expected of you in your private chef job.
To begin with, private chefs can also be called personal chefs, and if you want to work for a company as, say, a private chef in NYC, you will most likely be expected to have a culinary degree from a certified culinary school. Just learning how to cook from your grandmother won't be good enough if you want to break into the private chef job world, especially if you want to be hired by a personal chef company.
As a private chef, you will typically be expected to plan a menu and provide the food for a client's party or special occasion. Along with planning and cooking the meal, you may also be responsible for keeping a client's kitchen stocked with every ingredient imaginable that you might need in your private chef job. You'll contact grocers and compare them for quality of foods offered and pricing. You will also work with the grocer's delivery team to ensure that you are receiving the correct orders of food you'll need to prepare those sumptuous meals.
As a private chef, you will also be expected to be aware of any special dietary needs your clients have and what foods are the best for their diet. You may also work with other household staff and be in charge of kitchen staff members such as servers, sous chefs, and other chef-related personnel who work for your clients. Some private chefs who work for wealthy clients are live-in employees who stay in the given client's home and are provided room and board. If working for one specific client is your dream as a private chef, this may be right for you.
Other private chefs who work for chef companies may be sent from home to home to prepare meals, leaving after the given meal is over. Private chef jobs in NYC are on the rise in the city that never sleeps. Depending on your experience, as a private chef, you can expect to earn anywhere from $30 to $60 per hour, especially in the NYC private chef job industry. Along with your salary, you should expect the company you work for or the family you work for to provide a good benefits package that includes health insurance, vacation time, sick leave. Some families who employ a private chef will even offer you the use of a family vehicle to use for your duties as a private chef.
The clients of private chefs want to ensure that the ingredients their private chef is using have been personally picked for maximum taste. You must also be a good at inventing unique and varied menus for your clients when you work as a personal chef. After all, they've hired you for your culinary skills and will expect every meal you prepare as a personal chef to be a ''wow'' meal that will impress their friends.
Some families who employ a private chef let the private chef take charge of the kitchen, while others want to be fully involved in the whole process, from the menu planning stage to the serving stage. If you have a client who expects to be heavily involved in your personal chef duties, you must be able to listen and offer advice while also letting them feel that they were an important part of the meal. As such, you'll need to possess some good communication skills and be able to follow directions, as needed.
If you have the skills for a private chef job, you might ask yourself where you can find the best private chef jobs? That's easy! At ChefCrossing.com, a division of EmploymentCrossing, they search out every private chef job opening available on the Internet and place them into a single database. This personal chef job database is easy to search, as you can search by area — such as NYC chef jobs — salary, or keyword. You can also find out if a potential employer will offer relocation benefits or room and board — important benefits in the private chef job world.
Along with the vast database of jobs at ChefCrossing, the site offers informative Job Profile Videos in which experts in the private chef job industry discuss what skills and degrees are most desirable if you want to succeed as a private chef. ChefCrossing also offers articles from private chefs who give advice on what is expected from private chefs and how you can break into the private chef job industry.
So, now that you know what is expected of you when seeking that private chef job, whether it be an NYC private chef job or a chef job in another city, check out ChefCrossing today and you will be on your way to becoming a private chef who can wow clients' palates with your awesome culinary skills!
