Private Chef Agency in New York

New York holds one of the largest concentrations of ultra-high-net-worth households in the world, and the standard of private service here reflects it. Executive Chefs at Home is a private chef agency headquartered in New York. It is the market we know most closely, and one of the markets where we place full-time private and estate chefs most often.

What New York households expect of a private chef

A household in New York has usually eaten in the best restaurants in the city, often that week. The chef who cooks at home is measured against that standard every day — not on the elaborate evenings, but at a Tuesday lunch. That is why we recruit from the top five percent of culinary talent: typically Michelin-caliber chefs with at least three years of professional experience behind them.

Range matters as much as technique. A full-time private chef typically cooks about two hot meals a day — usually lunch and dinner, with breakfast left prepared — for the same people, week after week. The role asks for something restaurants do not: menus that stay interesting in their second year, dietary requirements held exactly, and a quiet family dinner given the same attention as an evening with guests.

Discretion is the third requirement. Many of our New York placements are with principals in finance and the family-office world, in households where privacy is assumed. A chef here works alongside house managers, housekeepers, security, and building staff without friction. Where a search is run by an estate manager or chief of staff on a principal’s behalf, our family office practice sets out how we work.

What a New York placement looks like

No two briefs are alike, but most New York searches take one of three shapes.

The city residence. An apartment or townhouse in Manhattan, a live-out chef, and a schedule built around the family’s week. Kitchens are often smaller than the household’s standards would suggest, storage is tight, and provisioning means daily relationships with purveyors rather than a weekly delivery.

The Tri-State estate. A larger property in Greenwich, Westchester, the North Shore of Long Island, or northern New Jersey — more space, children at home, weekend guests. These roles are sometimes live-in, particularly where the property is a long drive from where most chefs live. Our page on live-in private chefs covers what the accommodation needs to be.

The household that moves. Many New York families keep more than one residence: the city during the week, the Hamptons from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Palm Beach for the winter. One chef traveling with the family holds the standard constant across all of them. Travel should be written into the role from the start, not discovered in July.

A full-time private chef typically earns $160,000 to $190,000 per year before bonuses, and New York sits toward the upper end of the market. Our guide to what a full-time private chef costs sets out the full picture, including benefits and payroll.

Where we place across the Tri-State area

Each area shapes the role differently, and the differences affect which chefs we approach.

Manhattan. The Upper East Side remains the center of the traditional city household — co-op buildings with service entrances, staff protocols, and a settled way of doing things. Tribeca and the West Village lean toward lofts and townhouses, younger families, and a less formal table, though the cooking expected is no less exacting. Almost all Manhattan roles are live-out, and most candidates already live within commuting distance.

Greenwich and Fairfield County. Estate properties, often with children at home and a full household staff. Back-country Greenwich, New Canaan, and Darien are a real commute from the city, so we look first for chefs already settled in Connecticut or Westchester, then for candidates open to relocating or living in.

Westchester. Bedford, Rye, Scarsdale, and the river towns. Similar in shape to Fairfield County: family-centered, with a weekday routine and weekend guests. Getting to the property and to the markets is part of the brief here; some households provide a car, others cover the chef’s travel, and we settle which before the search begins.

Long Island’s Gold Coast. The North Shore estates — Old Westbury, Sands Point, Oyster Bay, Locust Valley — are among the largest properties in the region. Households here often keep a home on the East End as well, which makes the summer move part of the brief.

Northern New Jersey. Alpine, Saddle River, and Short Hills sit closer to Midtown than much of Connecticut, yet the local pool of private chefs is smaller. Searches here often draw candidates from the city who are willing to reverse-commute, and we are direct with them about what that means over a full year.

How a New York search works, and how long it takes

Every search begins with a conversation about the household: who is at the table, how the week runs, which residences are involved, and what has and has not worked before. From that we write the brief and approach chefs against it — most of them already employed and not visible on the open market. This is executive search, not a job board. Our recruiters contact candidates directly and in confidence.

A shortlist of three to five chefs typically arrives within one to two weeks. The full search runs anywhere from one to two weeks up to a few months. A straightforward live-out role in Manhattan sits at the short end. A specific cuisine, a kosher kitchen, a relocation to Connecticut, or a chef who must travel between three residences takes longer, and we would rather say so at the outset.

You interview the shortlist — our guide to the questions to ask a private chef is useful preparation — and the chef you prefer then works a paid, full-time trial of one to two weeks in your own kitchen. For the complete sequence, see how to hire a full-time private chef.

How candidates are vetted, and the guarantee

Every chef we present has had all references verified, in conversation with the principals, estate managers, or employers they worked for. Comprehensive background checks are run at your request. When you are ready to meet a candidate, we coordinate a tasting with your household, so the first judgment of the cooking is your own. The full process is set out in how we vet private chefs.

The trial is the real test. Most problems of fit that would surface in the third month surface in the first week instead, before any offer is made.

Every placement then carries a 90-day replacement guarantee. If the fit does not hold within that window, we run the search again, and there is no additional fee for the replacement. More than 99 percent of our placements hold past the guarantee window. Our fee is a percentage of the chef’s first-year compensation, with terms shared on inquiry.

Why a chef specialist rather than a household staffing agency

New York has no shortage of household staffing agencies. Most place nannies, housekeepers, estate managers, and chefs from the same desk. If you are staffing an entire household, that breadth is useful. If you only need a chef, you do not need a full household agency — you need recruiters who know professional kitchens.

We place chefs only. That focus is why our network runs deeper into the kitchens where this talent is trained, and why we can read a chef’s career the way another chef would. Our placement services page explains how the practice works, and our guide to hiring through an agency versus hiring independently weighs the alternatives fairly.

To begin a private chef search in New York or anywhere in the Tri-State area, tell us about your household.