- Meredith Hayden is a private chef in New York City and the Hamptons.
- She spoke to Insider about things that might surprise people about her job.
While working as a private chef at the beautiful home of a wealthy client may seem like a dream job, it's not always as glamorous as you might think.
Meredith Hayden, a private chef and recipe developer — who is based in New York City and works with clients there and in the Hamptons — spoke to Insider before her appearance at the 2023 South Beach Wine & Food Festival in February and shared details about what it's really like to be a private chef.
Here are things you may find surprising about a private chef's job, according to Hayden.
No two private-chef jobs are the same, but you just might get to live with your client part-time
Hayden shares her experiences as a live-in private chef on her Instagram page, but private chefs work in a variety of circumstances.
"Working as a private chef goes far beyond just meal prepping and catering," she said. "There are, which I've documented on my social media, live-in opportunities. There are also full-time year-long contracts that people can hire you for," she added.
While some clients ask private chefs to live and work in their homes, others might ask them to come in once a week and meal-prep dishes that they can heat up throughout the week, she said.
A private chef's schedule may change with the seasons
During the summer, Hayden usually lives at the Hamptons home of her primary client — whom she did not identify — on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She'll also work summer holidays like Labor Day or the Fourth of July.
However, her schedule during the off-season is vastly different because her clients entertain less.
"They really just need me to prepare meals for them to eat throughout the week," she said, adding that she might just work on a Monday to prepare those meals.
Clients might invite chefs to share meals with them
Hayden said that during the summer, she is invited to eat at the table with her clients. However, she added this is "definitely not the norm in the industry."
"I think I'm probably the only [private chef] I know who does this," she said. "I consider myself very lucky to work for such amazing people that have welcomed me into their home as part of the family," she added. "Obviously, every experience is different just because it is a case-by-case basis in regards to the relationship between a private chef and their client."
However, chefs should be prepared to work alone
"Again, I think everyone has their own individual experience, depending on their relationship with their client as well as the support that they have within their team," Hayden said.
In some cases, a full staff — including servers and people who help with kitchen prep — will work for a client. But that's not typical in Hayden's experience.
"That's only happened to me once, where they've already had people there to help me," she said. "Other than that, I'm typically by myself throughout most of my job."
As a result, working as a private chef involves long, hard hours
Hayden said that while it's a blessing to be able to go to local farmers' markets in the Hamptons and "prepare beautiful meals in beautiful homes," the hours are long and hard. Some of that is because she works alone, she said.
"I never really wanted to establish my own private-chef or catering business, so I've never really hired people to join me and expand my business that way," Hayden said.
"I think that there are instances in which chefs have a lot of support that might make their day a little bit easier, but overall, it's definitely not as glamorous as it seems, I think," she said.
TikTok has allowed Hayden the opportunity to only work with one client
When it comes to building her brand and business, Hayden isn't shy about the role social media has played in allowing her to take her private-chef business from a side hustle to a full-time job. Thanks to sponsorships, Hayden said she has been able to just work with one client and supplement her income with the money she earns from her TikTok.
"In the past, I would be juggling multiple clients at a time, but with TikTok, I've been able to stick to my primary client exclusively," she told Insider.
Private chefs can charge more than Hayden initially realized
"Back before I started doing TikTok and working as a private chef was my only source of income, I had zero knowledge of what anyone else was charging," she said. "The only knowledge I had was how much I needed to be charging in order to pay my bills."
She started out by "working backward" and charging clients based on the minimum amount of money she needed to make that month. Hayden later learned she was significantly undercharging for her services.
"I wasn't really making out or getting rich off of these gigs in the slightest," she said.
"I thought that I was being so slick with, 'Oh, I'm going to charge them an extra a hundred dollars here and extra a hundred dollars there.' But in reality, the value of the service that I had been providing was so much more than what I was charging," she added.
The "biggest and most helpful piece of advice" she's received was to price her hourly services separately from the cost of her materials. This helps cover rising grocery prices, availability of ingredients, and last-minute menu changes, she said.
Restaurant chefs can double their salary by adding private-chef gigs to their schedule
Hayden said that although it took her a while to find her footing and price her services correctly, she's seen how lucrative it can be for people who want to transition out of a typical restaurant-chef career, especially if they have a good marketing strategy and a few starter clients.
"If they're willing to take that leap and take on those added responsibilities that come with being a business owner, it's possible to double your salary by doing private-chef gigs," Hayden told Insider.
Despite cooking for a living, Hayden still loves it and doesn't order takeout as often as you might think
After spending hours cooking in the kitchen for her clients, "spending another 30 minutes standing up alone is just misery in and of itself," Hayden said, and the prospect of doing more dishes is even less appealing.
"In times like those, I try to be strategic with my leftovers, so I'll usually make a bunch of soup and freeze it," she said. "Then, if I know I'm having a busy week, I'll take some soup out of the freezer and make sure I have that on hand for those kinds of nights."
"Cooking for a living and living on a budget has made me a bit more reluctant to order takeout than most New York City people, just because I see how expensive it can be," Hayden said. "I'm more likely to stock up on Trader Joe's frozen food to have, instead of ordering takeout during those desperate times."
Despite cooking for her career, Hayden said that she still loves it.
"It's really more just a matter of physical and mental exhaustion over everything around cooking, but I still always enjoy cooking," she said.