The Household Chef

A household chef is an employment relationship, not a booking. The work is daily cooking for a family at a consistent standard, plus the guest dinners, the travel, the shopping, the stock rotation and the quiet diplomacy of a staffed house. Salaries in Europe run 5,500 to 12,000 euros a month depending on city, hours, travel and whether the role includes event cooking.

The skills that matter are different from event cooking. Variety without novelty, because the same people eat every day. Precision with diets, because the brief may include a medical restriction or an athlete’s macros. Budget control, inventory and waste. And discretion, which is why the profile is recruited by reputation and reference rather than by portfolio.

Hosts who hire well here describe it as the single largest quality of life change available. Hosts who hire badly describe a year of polite awkwardness, which is why a paid trial week of ordinary meals is standard practice and worth insisting on.