Outrageous movie star secrets and techniques revealed by non-public cooks: From £18,000 fish and bonkers dietary calls for to what stars from Ariana Grande to Beyonce truly eat

Long hours on your feet, sweating over a hot stove and fielding outlandish requests from demanding employers – the life of a private chef hardly screams glamour.

While your A-list clients sit at the table you’ve decorated, tucking into the expensive wine you’ve poured and the gourmet food you’ve lovingly prepared, you’re stuck in the kitchen eating their leftovers and doing the washing up.

But no more, for chefs to the rich and famous, it seems, have had enough of hiding behind their apron strings and want a slice of the spotlight for themselves.

Hobnobbing with celebrities, invites to the most exclusive parties and a social media fan base of their very own, private chefs are fast-becoming the new rock stars.

Andrea Zagatti is one of them. The 32-year-old, who lives in London, has lost count of the number of VIP clients he’s worked for – from musicians to politicians, actors to models – and says his job has introduced him to a ‘crazy celebrity world’.

‘I’ve found myself spending weekends with Justin Bieber and Kayne West, cooking dinner for the Royals at Blenheim Palace and making food for Obama and Trump,’ he says. ‘I take care of Jay Z [who famously employs a chef just to cook him chicken wings] every time he comes to the UK.’

Fresh out of Le Cordon Bleu cookery school, Andrea, who was born in Italy, quit Gordon Ramsay‘s two Michelin-starred London restaurant after two weeks (‘They paid me £1.88 an hour; I wanted more,’ he explains) and started out as a private chef.

By chance, he bumped into Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters on the street, persuaded him to let him cook for him – and soon the musician was introducing Andrea to all of his wealthy friends.

‘When you work for these sorts of people, you get to be a part of their outrageous lives,’ says the chef. ‘I remember cooking for a celebrity in Switzerland who wanted fresh turbot on New Year’s Eve. We had two days’ notice and had to fly it in by helicopter at a cost of £18,000 per fish.

‘For some dinners, you might spend £5,000 just on truffle, or £500,000 on single bottle of vintage wine. Once, I did a dinner party for ten people with a budget of £4.5million. When you’re their chef, whatever they want, you sort it – no questions asked.’

Off the back of his lucrative work, and thanks to his new A-list friends, Andrea has built something of a business empire – and a devoted fan base on social media, too.

More than 300,000 people follow his @mr.zagatti Instagram account, which he’s used to launch a caviar company (prices start at £250), a luxury sandwich company (which made headlines in 2021 for its £50 steak sandwich, wrapped in 24-carat edible gold) and, most recently, a global concierge business with a waiting list of 400 people, called VZ Bespoke.

‘Celebrities tag me in their stories, so my online following has grown because of that,’ he says. ‘Today, I mostly do restaurant reviews. I’ve eaten in around 4,500 restaurants – I have an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them. It’s a privileged life but I work extremely hard for it.’

Chloe Crampton knows this only too well. As Simon Cowell’s private chef in Los Angeles, Chloe, 35, from London, started out as an actress but was inspired by her Italian grandmother to follow her passion for cooking – and has never looked back.

Today, she boasts 92,000 followers on her @chloeskitchen Instagram account, where she also shares recipes for her website, features on celebrity podcasts and collaborates with top fashion, interiors and food brands. She’s currently working on her own cookbook.

‘It can definitely be a demanding job: fast-paced; long hours; meeting high expectations; and keeping up with a lot of changes,’ she says of her work. ‘It’s a daily performance. We are creating art. And no day is the same.’

Chloe is loyal to Cowell and his family, for whom she’s worked for four years, as he supported her through her diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer in 2021. When he’s out of town, she works for other A-listers – but isn’t allowed to say who.

Even at the peak of her industry, her days are long – sometimes 8am to 11pm – but the rewards can be huge. Indeed, Chloe’s social media looks like that of a glamorous influencer – idyllic beach snaps, trips to Hawaii, Florida and Cabo and posing with Cowell himself by a shimmering turquoise pool.

‘We become a part of these celebrities’ families, so people get a glimpse into the glamour of it all,’ she says. ‘What people don’t realise is the grind behind it. But there’s a lot of fun to be had if you have the stamina.’

And it’s not just the lifestyle that makes working as a private chef such an appealing career – there’s the salary, too. Chloe earns up to £1,000 a day, giving her an income that rivals a banker’s.

‘Private chefs can start at £95,000 [a year] and I would never accept lower than that, says Corey Belle Earling, 42, a Florida-based chef who’s worked for sports stars including Tiger Woods and Serena Williams.

‘A lot of money can be made here. I’ve been seeing jobs now hiring at £150,000 [a year]. You’re cooking for the elite, providing a luxury service, so you can demand more.’

Kelvin Fernandez, chef to Jennifer Lopez and the New York Yankees baseball team, charges £1,200-a-day for his services and does dinner parties for £150-a-head.

The New York-based cook, 39, who has 124,000 Instagram followers on his @chefkelvin account and 10,000 YouTube subscribers, has become known in the industry for bringing fine dining to the most unorthodox locations.

‘I think the craziest event we pulled off was a 30-person, three-course event from a fitting room at a sneaker store,’ he says. ‘No problems, only solutions is my motto.’

Now, he says, celebrities are coming to him for work – not the other way around. ‘I have had many celebrities reach out from social media, as well as sponsorship campaigns and collaborations that have helped me and my career. I think now, more than ever, chefs are the new celebrities. Social media gives you the platform to become whatever you want to become.’

At just 26, Atlanta Thompson has seen this first-hand: with 47,000 followers on Instagram (where she’s @the_fussyfoodie_) and another 17,000 on TikTok (@atlanta_thompson), the Oxfordshire chef spends her working life jetting between Spain, the Isle of Wight and the Alps.

Earning a name for herself on social media, she says, has led to lucrative work, with clients contacting her after seeing her mouth-watering dishes online.

‘My second professional cooking job was assisting a chef on the new Indiana Jones film,’ she explains. ‘One of the best things about being a private chef would have to be the travel and the varying days – it suits my personality well.’

There is, undeniably, something very rock ‘n’ roll about the world of private cheffing. With a unique insight into celebrities’ private lives and a free ticket to accompany them around the globe, it’s certainly more interesting than the average 9-to-5.

And Grant Bird’s day job is even more rock-star than most: he’s a tour chef to musicians including Beyonce, Ariana Grande and John Legend.

Grant, 38, from south-east London, trained at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant and fell into his line of work by chance – when he bumped into the head of catering at a Rihanna gig in 2011 and got a job at that year’s MTV Music Awards.

More than a decade later, he’s the pastry chef of choice for touring A-listers around the world, heading a team that feeds 600 backstage staff, supporting musicians and VIPs. Beyonce, he reveals, has a soft spot for his wasabi, black sesame and white chocolate cookies, while Kelly Clarkson loves chocolate mousse made with avocado – and Ariana Grande eats deep-fried Oreos by the dozen.

‘There are so many dietary preferences to get to grips with,’ Grant says. ‘And you just have to roll with them. The worst one I’ve come across is someone who doesn’t eat fruit that was picked from a tree – it has to have fallen freely. Celebrities can be a bit OTT, but that’s the business I’m in.’

But life on the road isn’t as glamorous as it seems, he insists. ‘It might look great, but all I’m doing is moving from car park to car park,’ he explains. ‘We get out of the tour bus at 4am, build a kitchen and then breakfast starts at 7am. You’ve got lunch 12pm to 4pm, dinner 5pm to 8.30pm, then the show starts at 9pm so we start dismantling before the bus leaves again at 2am. Most of the time, you don’t see sunlight.’

With such a hard slog behind the scenes, it seems only right that private chefs get some of their famous clients’ star power.

As Andrea Zagatti puts it: ‘I could never have imagined I’d be living this sort of life when I was younger. So I’m determined to make the most of it – and enjoy every minute.’