A private chef on 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht' shares what he wishes charter guests knew about his job

• Chef Marcos Spaziani made his reality-TV debut on season three of "Below Deck Sailing Yacht."
• Spaziani told Insider there are some things he wishes guests understood before making food requests.

Chef Marcos Spaziani has worked as a professional chef for decades, but this season of Bravo's "Below Deck Sailing Yacht" was his first time cooking on a sailboat.

This season of the pre-taped show, which airs every Monday at 8 p.m. ET and follows a crew of yachting staff through their charter season, is set off the coast of Menorca, Spain.

In an interview with Insider, Spaziani said that his new workplace posed some challenges he had to get used to, like cooking in a more narrow galley kitchen — which becomes a near-completely tilted space when the boat picks up wind. He said he's also learned more about working with guests who don't know the difference between feasible and overly complicated requests.

"When you're renting this type of boat, your expectations are huge," Spaziani told Insider.

He said that in his experience yacht guests have all sorts of outlandish culinary demands, mostly because they don't fully understand what the crew's jobs are and how they operate.

"I don't even blame them for that," he said. "They just have money and they're used to eating whatever they want."

Spaziani said that unless you've worked in the industry yourself, it's tough to understand that luxury life isn't as easy to maintain on a boat as it may be on land.

With that in mind, Spaziani shared the top three things he wishes guests would understand before chartering a staffed yacht.

Don't assume your chef is an expert in pastry

"Don't ask your chef to bake a cake on board," Spaziani said. Asking for a birthday cake might seem like a super simple request, but according to the chef that's far from true.

Not all chefs are well-versed in the world of confectionery, Spaziani said, so don't expect that they can whip up a luxury cake with lettering, fondant, and gorgeous designs. They may not have the skillset or tools handy to pull it off, he added.

Chefs are humans, too, and they need rest just like anyone else

Just because guests are paying someone doesn't mean they have the stamina to work non-stop for several days, Spaziani said.

"Some guests are really conscious of that and they tell you, 'Oh, go rest!'" he said. "But some people think you're just always there for them."

Waking your chef in the middle of the night for late-night eats is a big no-no, Spaziani said. "I've had that before," he said. "They wake you up at 3 a.m. and say, 'Hey, I want pizza from scratch.' No."

He said guests sometimes don't realize that breaks are necessary, and they want chefs to be available all day and night. "I know they pay money for that, and we have to be ready at all times, but we're humans," he said. "We get tired, we go to the bathroom, we take naps."

Requesting a type of cuisine that's not local to where you're sailing is costly and complicated

Spaziani said he's gotten many requests, throughout his years of working on yachts, for meals featuring cuisines from places that are nowhere near where they're docked.

"I've been in Europe and they've asked me for Peruvian food," he said, speaking of private yachting clients he's had in the past, so he had to fly in some of the ingredients just to make it happen.

Spaziani will almost always say yes to requests like these, he told Insider, adding that he warns the guests that he will have to import the ingredients for a fee. Usually, Spaziani said, that doesn't deter his clients, many of whom will "pay thousands of dollars for one ingredient that costs almost nothing."

Spaziani said that, ultimately, "they can ask for whatever they want," and it's his job to figure it out.