Yacht Chef Q&A

This is the beauty of yachting — it gives almost anyone a chance to prove themselves. But nobody hands you a superyacht galley cold: you bridge the gap through restaurant time, smaller boats (I started on Great Barrier Reef dive boats), crew roles that lead to the galley, or a crew-chef position under an experienced head chef. Attitude and work ethic open the doors.

Two non-negotiables: STCW Basic Safety Training (about a week, hands-on) and an ENG1 seafarer's medical. Add a food safety certificate for the galley, and on larger commercial yachts a Ship's Cook Certificate. A culinary apprenticeship is ideal but not the only way in — in the end, the only judgement that matters is what ends up on the table.

The certificates take weeks; becoming a chef takes cooking hours nobody can gift you. Working chefs can realistically be on boats within 1–3 months. Confident home cooks should plan 6–18 months via real kitchen time first. Anyone promising a superyacht galley in 21 days with zero cooking background is selling a fantasy.

Be where the boats are — Antibes or Palma for the Med season, Fort Lauderdale for the Caribbean. Stay in a crew house, register properly with the agencies, daywork hard, and make your food findable online. I've been hired every way possible: agent, word of mouth, a fellow yachtie, LinkedIn and even Instagram.

Land references count more than you think — a head chef saying you're fast, clean and easy to work with is gold to a captain. Then stack sea proof: daywork stints, deliveries, dive boats, villa gigs. Every short job should end with payment and a written reference. My first sea references came from dive boats, not superyachts.

Versatility — I can't stress this enough. My PADI Divemaster ticket won me my first yacht job over every straight-kitchen chef who applied. A proper yachting-format CV, a clean food portfolio (Instagram works), solid references and one extra skill a small crew can use will put you ahead of the pile.

Yachting is a word-of-mouth industry — the best jobs are filled by "I know someone" before they're ever posted. Crew houses are the real job boards, daywork is a paid audition, agents place people they remember, and your reputation travels faster than you do. Leave every boat on good terms.

Ask yourself honestly: can you live in close confinement, miss family events, and handle pressure as a department of one? If you read the hard parts and feel excited rather than warned off, that's your answer. The trade is normality for experiences almost nobody on earth gets — 14 years in, I'd make it again.

Sole chefs starting out typically earn around €3,500–5,500 a month; head chefs on 50m+ yachts €6,000–10,000+. But the real story is what you keep — accommodation, food, flights and medical are covered, and on charter the tips can genuinely change your year. During a busy season there's no time to spend what you earn.

No course can make you a chef — only kitchen hours do that. What good training buys is time and avoided mistakes: which tickets in what order, where to be and when, how hiring actually works. If guidance gets you hired one month sooner, it's paid for itself many times over. Never pay anyone who promises you a job.

Everything. Breakfast, lunch and dinner for guests plus three crew meals, every day — Japanese one night, a beach BBQ the next, a kids' cake in between. Up at 5am, done after midnight on charter. Guests will remember the food above almost everything else, which is the pressure and the privilege of the job.

Small spaces, moving floors and no corner shop. Wet towels under chopping boards, pots half-filled, everything strapped down. I've cooked through a six-day storm with the stabilisers gone — preparation beats heroics every time. My three desert-island tools: a Thermomix, a Rational combi oven and a decent vacuum pack machine.

Their memories, recreated. Guests describe a dish from a five-star hotel and you produce exactly that — I once needed four attempts and a photo to nail a corned beef hash a client remembered. Read the preference sheet like a contract, say yes without flinching, and never let the hundredth breakfast slip below the first.

You plan backwards from the itinerary: professional provisioners in the hubs, local markets everywhere else (my favourite part of the job), and backups for the plan going wrong. The South Pacific taught me the real skills — buy what the island has, vacuum-pack like it's a religion, and manage ripening like a spreadsheet.

Versatility, flexibility, composure, organisation and humility — the five qualities this job actually runs on. You're a one-person department managing provisioning, budgets and morale, living centimetres from your colleagues for months. Anyone can learn to cook; these are what they can't teach in culinary school.

Forget molecular party tricks — I tried that on my first boat and it wasn't me, and it's rarely what guests want. Amazing ingredients, your own spin, without too much fuss. Get quality restaurant time, build breadth across the world's cuisines, train your eye, and master the quiet fundamentals: seasoning, sauces, bread.

A shared cabin the size of a wardrobe, months with the same faces, 16–18 hour days when guests are on — then quiet weeks diving off the back deck somewhere extraordinary. I've swum with whale sharks in Papua New Guinea and had Prince Albert visit my galley. The trade is normality for moments money can't buy.

Most captains will tell you the chef has the hardest job on the boat: you're the make-or-break position, a department of one, recreating guests' food memories on demand while the galley rolls. I won't sugarcoat it — but the same job hands you the world, and prepared chefs last.

Honestly — it's real, and it catches good people off guard. What works: a hobby that travels (mine are diving and photography), small routines kept deliberately, staying social in the crew mess instead of cabin-hiding, protecting your off-season, and saying something early when you're struggling. The industry has got much better at this.

At a minimum: Med summers, Caribbean winters. At best: the remote South Pacific, Raja Ampat, places only the top one percent ever see — and you're paid to be there. Add rotation or freelance work and you get real weeks off to explore on your own terms. Fourteen years in, the ocean is my address.

A restaurant chef masters one menu with a brigade behind them. A yacht chef cooks everything, alone, in a kitchen that moves — with no food-cost ceiling and the world outside the porthole. I've never chased Michelin stars; I chase life experiences. That's the real difference.

Interior is the more accessible entry and comes with teammates; the galley demands proven cooking but gives you your own department. If you love people and polish, go interior. If you'd rather express yourself on a plate, go galley. Plenty of chefs started as stews and fell into the position — it's a legitimate route.

I started private and relished it — for three years I was practically part of the family. But it's hard to beat charter: new guests every week keeps the work interesting, and the tips reflect how appreciated we are. Early on, take whichever hires you first; sea time and references beat strategy.

Motor wins on galley space and polish; sail teaches resourcefulness and seamanship (and cooking at a constant lean). The cultures differ more than the cooking — small salty crews versus floating five-star hotels. Don't be precious about your first boat: the chef who's done both is more employable than either specialist.

Nearly every yacht chef did, including me — 8 years in land kitchens before 14 at sea. Your speed and standards transfer; the brigade, the supply chain and the still floor don't. Get your tickets, test your sea legs on smaller vessels, and trade your ego for curiosity.