The private chef industry is booming. As James Burke points out in this piece for The Times, more and more people want “restaurant-level food without leaving their gated driveways.” But what is it really like behind those gates? Burke lifts the lid on a world of “cruelty, chaos and cocaine consumption.” It may sound glamorous, but only those with serious stamina and a thick skin will survive this career choice.
Then again, I’ve also cooked for a mysterious heiress who lived in a seven-floor compound in west London. There were two security huts, a fingerprint scanner and five flights down to the basement kitchen — a dungeon of stainless steel. I never saw her face and was probably never closer than seven rooms away. I only felt her presence in the terror of her staff, each of whom, at some point, came into the kitchen in tears.
I made lunch seven times that day, and every time it was sent back. Eventually, I realised that she preferred her cucumbers to be cut into diamonds rather than circles. I decided not to go back the next day.
More picks on food
The Pie and Mash Crisis: Can the Original Fast Food Be Saved?
“There used to be hundreds of pie and mash shops in London. Now there are barely more than 30. Can social media attention and a push for protected status ensure their survival?”
How Losing My Limbs Turned Me Into a Different Kind of Cook
“Two years ago, our cooking columnist Yewande Komolafe woke from a coma and soon learned her body would be profoundly altered. She recounts her journey back to the kitchen, and to herself.”
Feast Your Eyes on Japan’s Fake Food
“However persuasive they might be as facsimiles, shokuhin sampuru are subjective interpretations, seeking not only to replicate dishes but to intensify the feelings associated with the real thing.”
Can Jollibee Beat American Fast Food at Its Own Game?
“The U.S. introduced fast food to the Philippines. Now Jollibee is serving it back to America.”
Who Was the Foodie?
“What it would mean to take taste seriously again?”
Pizzastroika
“In 1990, in the last breaths of the Cold War, a delicious act of American subversion unfolded in Moscow. It’s long been forgotten. It shouldn’t be.”
