Secrets of a Yacht Chef - skills, salary and snacking all day!

hello and welcome in this video we're going to be talking about what it is like to work as a yacht chef [Music] [Music] now i started yachting in 2013 i dabbled a bit as a stewardess a deckhand but i've spent the last four years as a chef working in the galley and this video is going to be all about that you know i love working on boats i love cooking so being a yacht chef is like the perfect job for me all right let's start at the beginning what is a yacht chef now basically it's a chef that works on a yacht duh so the difference between being a chef on land and a chef on a vessel is basically the environment you're on a boat the boat is moving you're having to stow things you're being very careful when you're cooking you might get seasick which is not very nice another huge difference is the fact that a restaurant is a business designed to make money whereas a yacht is basically like a money vacuum you know yes you can offset costs by chartering the vessel but typically it is not designed to turn a profit now another one would be the fact that in a restaurant you are cooking the same menu pretty much every day whereas on a yacht that is certainly not happening every day every meal has to be different being creative within the constraints of what food you have on board is a skill not only that but you have to be skilled in a wide array of cuisines mediterranean indian chinese japanese italian middle eastern one day the guests might want sushi then next they might want a big beautiful meze spread so as a yacht chef you have to be very adaptable and know your cuisines very well being able to make fresh tortillas or ramen noodles it's those extra skills which really help you as a yacht chef yacht chefs also pride themselves on making a lot of things from scratch i make all my own bread on board all the sorbets the ice creams the desserts you know other chefs will bring their sort of specialities maybe cheese making chocolate making i like to make kombucha and bottle it so that gets served to the guest all these little extra things that you can bring as a yacht chef really adds to the guest experience so there are four parts that kind of make up a yacht chef role the first one is the cooking which is the fun one let's start at the top the cooking and who does it now it depends on the length and the volume of the vessel but a general guide is that if a vessel is between 24 meters and 55 meters there is just a soul chef on board between 55 to kind of 80 meters there'll be two chefs and then anything above 80 then we're starting to talk about you know three shares four chefs so on and so forth i have had the most experience in a two chef galley so that is what i'm going to be talking about today so the head chef's main role is cooking for the guests most yachts take up to 12 guests give or take a few extra for the odd dinner party prior to guests arriving we typically get a preference sheet that details a whole bunch of information it lets us know what they enjoy eating drinking any dietaries and then we can plan accordingly it gives us the style of service they like maybe like buffet breakfast family style lunches plated dinners perhaps or you know if they like silver service or casual barbecue it helps both the galley and the interior team sort of tailor the service to what the guest wants so the head chef prepares every single aspect of the guest's food you know breakfast lunch dinners canapes snacks midnight munchies i have certainly been woken up at 2am for a sort of midnight snack the strangest request i ever had was from a very well-known wrap artist who at 2am had a craving for chicken livers and grits so the sous chef's role is to support the head chef they basically take control of the crew food so their the crew is their baby they manage planning the crew menu and cooking for all the crew and things like that and then any extra tasks that the head chef needs them to do they then take that on board uh the crew food takes up a lot of time a lot of chefs will say it's actually harder to cook for the crew than it is for the guests because they can be pretty fussy sometimes they're doing intermittent fasting they don't like tomatoes or blue cheese or something like that you know maybe they just want salads so they want to be healthy but then you see them going eating about like a bunch of chocolate each night you know i just don't understand but yes that is the sous chef role cooking for crew and supporting the head chef all of the two chef galleries that i've worked in either as a head chef or a sous chef have been very team orientated they're working we're working very closely together you know if the head chef has service the sous chef is in the sink washing up their dishes helping support them during the service whatever they need and vice versa no space for egos or anything like that in a yacht galley is such a small space and it is really important that both chefs support each other so next up let's talk about provisions and stock management so as i've spoken about previous videos i can either use a provisioning company or i can go do it myself but either way food needs to get from the land and be brought on board and once it's on board i then have to take care of it put it away make sure it stays feed it fresh and use it in the correct order and make sure it's restocked so i am always monitoring how much we have on board of fresh produce dry goods meat and seafood and i'm constantly talking to the captain about when i will next be able to bring provisions on board because it depends if the boat is moving from one place to another or if we're going to be underway for a long passage you're always thinking ahead about the next port trying to make contacts there about where the best supermarket is or who the best provisioner is to organize that and have that ready for you when you arrive it depends on the size of the storage but typically i'll take a frozen meat and seafood order every two to three months i'll take a large dry goods order every month and then a fresh produce and dairy order will maybe be every week to two weeks depending on how many guests and crew that we have on board basically i'm always keeping tabs on things making sure that i'm refilling my galley containers because this helps me have a smooth service i'm pretty much monitoring everything to make sure we don't run out because it's not like i can just pop down to the shops bring my wholesaler to come and drop something by because we might be in a really remote place or you know even in alaska we would be getting provisions by seaplane and the logistics of that sometimes are just mental so to be a yacht chef you have to be very very organized with that kind of thing let's talk about cleaning and galley management much less glamorous i'm afraid but it is essential very regularly doing full deep cleans of the freezer the walk-in all the dry storage spaces the galley potentially a guest could walk in at any second so you want to keep it looking and span it's so important each morning to kind of check on the produce what needs to be used if the zucchini is looking a little tired well guess the crew are going to be eating a lot of zucchini etc etc as a chef you're working very closely with the interior team to provide the best service possible you're working with the chief stewardess to coordinate service times you're discussing which wines to pair with the food you're choosing which plates to serve on the service team are basically the eyes of the galley they're up there they're watching the guests and it's very important that we're always on the radio talking to each other about what's happening so let's talk about the galley itself now it's gonna be a nice space because we do spend a lot of time in the galley uh the general sort of equipment that we have in the galley typically you'll find induction or electric hubs on yachts because you can't have a naked flame on a vessel because of insurance reasons uh ovens more often than not you'll have a combi oven so it does both steam and normal heat which is really good you might have a grill or salamander definitely a fridge and a freezer upstairs in the galley and if you're lucky a walk-in fridge and freezer elsewhere on the boat hopefully only one set of stairs away a stand mixer like a kitchenaid or a kenwood a food processor like a robocoop sous-vide machine a vacuum sealing machine these are all kind of like the essentials and then you get to the more expensive bonus items like a paco jet real top of the line ice cream churning machine also a thermomix incredibly valuable to have not only does it blend it also cooks it stirs you can kind of pop it in set the timer leave it to go so it's like having an extra chef in the galley thermomix if you're watching this i love you uh uniform typically you'll have a more casual uniform when it's just crew on board but when the guests are on board it is chef white's you're looking smart and you could potentially also have a option for the evening because as i said the guests do sometimes come into the galley or you're asked to head out to the table after dinner to talk to the guests so it is important that you're looking smart now finally let's talk about budgets and accounting yes typically there is a crew budget it's usually around kind of 17 euros to 25 euros per person per day so very easy to keep within those constraints however when it comes to guests i have never ever actually had a budget for guest food these clients want the best possible experience they have no monetary limits in delivering it to them you know caviar kobe beef white truffles from alba sushi rolls covered in gold leaf all of the above there are no profit margins to worry about so it actually gives you a huge amount of creative freedom a fantastic chef to follow would be the yacht chef my friend dean so we worked together on motor yacht he does some incredible things working with very high-end luxury ingredients and he certainly showcases them to the best of his ability now the end of the trip is when things get interesting when it comes to invoicing and sending across the receipts and everything like that so basically you're in charge of compiling all the charges you then send that off to the management company and they take care of the payment but you know you still really have to make sure that you keep all your invoices you track your receipts and uh that you don't lose your credit card because that is bad so those are the four main parts and you can see it's a big job you know kind of a general day in the life uh depending on the guest routine you would wake up at sort of six seven a.m get your bread on for the day so start baking start your breakfast prep serve breakfast to the guests now as soon as breakfast is done straight into lunch prep straight into prepping dessert for lunch and once guest lunch is over that kind of gives you a window where you can go for a break if you're organized so after the break straight back to working into it uh prepping for dinner and canapes so you're gonna do canada pay service then dinner service might start at 9 00 pm and then you might round up service around 11 pm clean down the galley kind of look at what you need to prepare for the next day um putting some don't feeding the starter and the meat pulled out you know planning the menu for the next day and then you start it all again the next day so you can see when it's a three to four week trip it can get very exhausting it's a very stressful high pressure job particularly because it is a creative role you're constantly having to come up with new and exciting things so it can be an extremely draining roll uh but i still love it i still love it now the reason why anyone would be a yacht chef is obviously because they love cooking but also there are huge perks to this job you don't have a budget to work you have a lot of creative freedom you are traveling you're getting to see beautiful places in the world and the pay can be excellent the doc walk salary guide doc walk is a fantastic magazine this one a note here i actually write a column for doc walk so head on over check out their chef column dishing it up because that's me as stated in the doc walk salary guide the pay for a head chef on a kind of 55 to 60 meter vessel is between seven and a half thousand to ten thousand us dollars per month so that is the reason why the pay is very good there so to round it all up the single most important thing that a yacht chef needs to be is flexible you might have created this incredible menu typed it all up it's been presented to the guests and they've said oh you know we don't actually feel like that can you come up with something else and you've just got to remain calm cool collected and roll with the punches they might walk into the galley 30 minutes before lunch service and ask for churros for dessert just not that's basically what you gotta do now i'm gonna round up with a very quick little q a i did put a post on instagram saying if you had any questions about being a yacht chef hit me up so i've got them all here do you snack all day while cooking yes yes i do uh i have to taste everything i'm cooking so i'm constantly nibbling eating little bits it's a bit annoying because you never actually get hungry you're always just kind of semi-full what type of requests have you had to decline because the limitations of the kitchen i personally haven't had any situations like this but my friend was asked to slaughter a goat for a special ceremonial dinner and she unfortunately had to decline because she did not have the space or the skill to do that um that's a very rare story do you have a customer preference that you find most difficult to cook for actually i had a low sodium a very like low sodium or zero sodium guest and this was actually really hard only in the fact that because everything just had to be cooked separately for that person so no matter what it was they had their own pot their own pan and i just put zero salt on it luke has asked who cooks when you are sick and now if i'm sick it's pretty much a guarantee that a lot of other crew are feeling sick as well so they're not going to feel like eating but really if i am so sick or whoever else is in the galley with me is so sick that we can't cook uh there is always always food in the creaminess whether that's leftovers or toast or ham or cheese in the fridge cereal don't worry the crew don't starve they will always find something to eat i love this what sort of meal has been the least popular or what dish has garnered the worst reaction i have struggled to serve crew lamb i don't know what it is but typically crew don't like lamb which is really weird but also i tried serving a korean soup which is a tofu and kimchi soup i i'm not even gonna try and pronounce correctly but it did not go down well uh which is a shame because i loved it but it it was a total fail yeah when on land mcdonald's or burger king i'm a mcdonald's girl every day i love love cheeseburgers what is the worst part about being on the boat that's an easy one it is not having your own space you know you're sharing a cabin and you're also sharing a crew mess so you can't really escape anywhere you have very very little privacy so that is the hardest part of what i find working on board yachts this is a really good one is there anything that can't be cooked or done food-wise on board a yacht uh yeah i tried smoking a brisket and it was just such a fail so there you go thank you so much for those questions i love hearing from you guys now i do have plans to be back on board very shortly more on that in a future video but for now thank you so much for watching i hope you learned something new make sure you hit subscribe and i will see you next time

Channel: TheCrewChef

Views: 1,052,579

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Id: camtmgLpw_I

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 03 2022