How to become a private chef ?

As the name implies, a private chef is a chef employed in the home of a private individual or a family as a full-time cook who lives in that house. The task involves preparing menus, buying the food ingredients, and cooking. If you love cooking and desire to become a professional private chef, read on to learn all you require to become one.

The Compulsory Skill for the Role of a Private Chef

To be a private chef, you must have the following personal qualities. They include being creative and intuitive, managing time, ingrained business acumen, energy, etiquette, and technological ability to operate modern kitchen equipment.
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Additional qualifications are education, experience to do the job, and advanced certification.

Duties of a Private Chef

If you have the above skills, your job includes buying the ingredients for making the food, storing them properly, creating a good menu for the family, and being up to date with nutritional information.
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Other duties include cooking and serving the food in a private household, preparing special diets, performing catering tasks when your employer host parties in the house, and keeping the kitchen and cooking equipment clean and in excellent condition.

Recommended Education

Some people may waive education and choose to learn on the job, but it is suggested that you begin the career of a private chef by obtaining a culinary education. This is because it will make you more marketable when searching for a job. Moreover, acquiring a cooking certificate will let you succeed faster as a chef.
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In most culinary schools, you can get a degree or diploma in four years. The course content includes food science, nutrition, total cuisine, hygiene, and baking. After completing your education, the next thing is to obtain at least one year of experience.

Getting Experience for the Position

To practice what you have learned in college before applying to work as a private chef, it will be bet if you got a job in a restaurant, hotel, to equip yourself with some experience.
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Another way of acquiring experience is to become an apprentice to professional cooks or mentors. After gaining the experience, you can accelerate your chances of being hired, obtain better pay, and a worthwhile future career outlook by getting an advanced certification.

Obtaining advanced Certification from ecognized Institutions

The American Culinary Federation is one of the top institutions that certify students with either a personal certified chef credential or an executive chef credential.

To gain admission there, you must have one to three years of experience preparing food, creating a menu, marketing, and financial management. If you have a culinary certificate and one year of work experience, you can get higher certification there.
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To receive the certification, you must complete the course work, pass the exams and the practical test.

Positions available for a Private Chef

Research of the US market puts the typical salary for private cooks at $41,000 annually. You can start from an executive chef position and reach the highest rank as the food and beverage director in five to ten years.

Apart from working for a personal household, a certified private chef can offer cooking classes and open a food cooking training school.

If you choose to become a personal chef, you can work solely for yourself after acquiring the necessary qualifications and do the same duties as a private chef on a contract. Check all our Chef positions here.