Private Chef Placement in NYC
Thoughtful food, cooked for your family at home.
We identify, screen and introduce private chefs to families across New York — matched to how your household eats, the requirements your family keeps, and the schedule you actually need cooked for.
What does a private chef do?
A private chef cooks for one household. The role normally covers planning menus around how your family likes to eat, shopping and sourcing, cooking daily or on set days, and keeping the kitchen organised — stock rotation, storage, equipment and food safety.
Most private chefs also cook ahead, leaving meals properly stored and labelled for the days they are not there, which is often what makes the arrangement work for a family with an irregular schedule. Many will cover small dinners at home; larger events are usually catered separately, and it is worth agreeing where that line falls before hiring.
How is a private chef different from a personal chef or a caterer?
A private chef works for a single household, usually on a regular schedule, and cooks around that family’s tastes and routine. A personal chef typically serves several clients, often preparing batches of meals delivered on a weekly basis rather than cooking in the home each day. A caterer is engaged per event.
For families who want daily or near-daily cooking from someone who knows the household — which child will not eat anything green this month, which evening is always late, what the family actually wants on a Tuesday after a long day — a private chef is the arrangement that fits.
What should you look for when hiring a private chef?
Menu planning and dietary awareness, cleanliness and food safety, and flexibility with family schedules. That last one is underrated: in a private household, dinner moving by two hours is a normal Tuesday, and a chef who cannot absorb that will not last.
Cook a trial. Nearly every family that hires well does a paid trial day or two before making an offer, and it reveals more than any interview — how the chef plans, shops, works in your actual kitchen, cleans down, and whether the family genuinely enjoys the food.
Ask about range as well as speciality. A chef whose restaurant background is superb but narrow may struggle with a household that wants simple family food most nights and something more considered at the weekend.
How are dietary requirements and allergies handled?
Set them out in full at the very first conversation, before candidates are approached. Allergies, intolerances, religious or ethical requirements, and any eating pattern the household follows all shape which chefs are genuinely suitable, and they are not details to discover during a trial.
Where an allergy is serious, ask candidates directly about cross-contamination practice — separate boards and utensils, storage, label checking, and how they handle ingredients they have not used before. Experience of cooking around a severe allergy is a specific competency, not something every good cook has.
One boundary worth stating plainly: a private chef cooks to requirements your family has already established. Seva Elite Staffing does not provide dietary, nutritional or clinical advice, and the professionals we introduce are not placed to give it. Anything clinical stays with your own doctor.
Full-time, part-time, or a few days a week?
Seva Elite Staffing places private chefs on full-time, part-time and flexible schedules, and in both live-in and live-out arrangements. Many households do not need a chef every day: three days of cooking, with meals prepared ahead for the rest of the week, covers a great many families comfortably.
Work out what you genuinely want cooked before deciding the schedule. A household that eats out four nights a week and wants weekends covered needs something quite different from one where every weekday dinner is at home. Share the real pattern and we will look for chefs whose availability matches it.
How does Seva Elite Staffing screen private chefs?
Before any introduction, Seva Elite Staffing verifies identity, contacts previous families or employers for references, reviews relevant experience and interviews the candidate personally. For chefs we look closely at private-household experience specifically, because cooking well in a restaurant and cooking well for one family day after day are different skills.
You hire your chosen chef directly and become their employer of record, responsible for wages, taxes, insurance and supervision. Seva Elite Staffing does not employ, pay or supervise the professionals it places.
We place private chefs with families across New York City, Westchester County, Long Island and the Hamptons, including the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Tribeca, the West Village, SoHo, Chelsea, Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. You can also see the full range of household roles we place or tell us what your household needs.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Questions About Private Chefs
A private chef works for one household on a regular schedule, cooking around that family’s tastes and routine. A personal chef usually serves several clients, often preparing batches of meals delivered weekly rather than cooking in the home each day. Seva Elite Staffing places private chefs for families who want cooking at home from someone who knows the household.
Yes. Allergies, intolerances, religious or ethical requirements and established eating patterns are all requirements Seva Elite Staffing screens for, including experience of cross-contamination practice where an allergy is serious. Set these out at the first conversation so the search is built around them. Seva Elite Staffing does not provide dietary, nutritional or clinical advice.
Yes, and most families that hire well do. A paid trial day shows how a chef plans, shops, works in your kitchen and cleans down, and whether your family enjoys the food — none of which an interview reveals reliably. Seva Elite Staffing can arrange trials as part of the introduction process.
Many will cover small dinners at home as part of the role, but larger events are usually catered separately. It is worth agreeing where that line falls before hiring, including how much notice the chef needs and whether additional help is brought in. Tell us how often you entertain and we will raise it with candidates from the outset.
Not necessarily. Many households have a chef cook three days a week and prepare meals ahead for the remaining days, which suits families with irregular schedules. Seva Elite Staffing places private chefs on full-time, part-time and flexible arrangements, so describe the pattern you actually want cooked for and we will match availability to it.
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Tell us what your home needs.
Share a few details about the role and your household, and we will begin identifying professionals worth meeting.