On the chef side, cooks are finding opportunities not typically available in a restaurant, like extravagant pay and flexible schedules. In Air Mail, Daniel Wood, the founder of Private Chef Match, reports that his business places chefs in positions with annual salaries ranging from $150,000 to $300,000. Some of Wood’s current job openings require 10 days of work or less per month. Brian Aruda, a former chef and founder of Executive Chefs at Home, details the upside for chefs: “…you make more money, you have more time, and one six-hour event can make you more money than a week and a half in a restaurant would.”
Clients, meanwhile, are more than happy to shell out high rates for a private chef. Air Mail reports that it’s not unusual for match-making services to charge $20,000 — groceries concluded — for a high-end dinner with guests. One time, Aruda shares, a client asked him to purchase $20,000 worth of caviar. As private chef services have become more common, they’ve led to something of a frenzy in high-net-worth social circles. The summer, Aruda says, is “absolutely insane—they all want caviar, they all want truffles, and everyone’s competing against each other.”