Roles we place
Private chefs
A private chef cooks for one household, three meals a day if asked, for years, and must still be able to surprise it on a Tuesday in February.
| Usually engaged by | Families who eat at home most nights, and households that entertain |
|---|---|
| Live-in | About one in four |
| Our search | Usually six weeks, with a cooked trial |
| Placed in 2025 | Sixteen |
The role
Private chefs cook for a family, its guests and often its staff. The work ranges from breakfast for children before school to a dinner for thirty with two days’ notice, from a strict medical diet followed to the gram to a cellar dinner planned with the butler a month ahead. Most of the chefs we place shop for the household themselves, keep its kitchen and its suppliers, and travel with the family to a second house in the summer or the winter.
Who we look for
We look for chefs who have cooked in fine restaurants and who have discovered that they would rather cook for people they know. We look for range, because a family will eat the same kitchen’s food for years; for economy, because a household’s budget is real money; and for an even temper, because a private kitchen has no pass to hide behind and the principal may walk in at any moment wanting toast.
Every chef we put forward cooks a trial meal for the family, in the family’s kitchen, with ingredients the household pays for. We attend the first part of it.
Cook-housekeepers
Many smaller households want one person to cook and keep house. A good cook-housekeeper is a treasure, rarer than either a chef or a housekeeper, and usually spoken for. We place a number every year, often with older clients and in island houses.