‘Hamptons Summer Is Our Olympics’: Private Chefs Offer a Glimpse of Cooking for the Wealthy

As the weather heats up and the city becomes unbearable, the country’s wealthiest escape to their beach homes in places like the Hamptons. And with them come their private chefs.

Glimpses into what someone cooks for the jet set have become social-media gold, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Private chefs are filming their days whipping up salads full of bountiful produce and sandwiches that viewers can re-create at home. And people are eating up their content—both literally and figuratively: TikTok said that posts with the hashtag #privatechef have reached more than 1 billion views, a number that’s quadrupled since June of 2022.

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“Hamptons summer is like our Olympics,” the private chef DyAnne Iandoli told the WSJ.

Iandoli, who has many summer clients out east, estimated that about 60 percent of private chefs in New York City uproot themselves to the Hamptons over the summer, for either weekend jobs or full-time opportunities. And Mike Shand, the co-founder of Elite Private Chefs and a private chef to celebs like Beyoncé and Adele, said that hundreds—and maybe even thousands—of chefs head to the Hamptons during the high season.

Once there, these chefs share “day in the life” videos as they cook up elaborate meals for their wealthy clients and their guests. For some, these clips lead to more private-chef gigs, sponsorship deals, and millions of online fans. While they can be a showcase of their work in the kitchen, they also play into people’s desire to know how the other half lives, which is perhaps what makes these TikToks and Instagram videos so appealing.

“People in general are fascinated by the world of celebrities,” the private chef Brooke Baevsky, who has cooked for people like Chrissy Teigen, told The Wall Street Journal. “And what they eat is a very interesting part of it.”

Of course, social media can make private cheffing look a lot more glamorous than it is. Spending a whole day in the kitchen, cooking multiple meals for multiple people, is real work: For example, some private chefs can be chopping, mixing, and sautéing for 17 hours in preparation for a party.

But with the gleaming white kitchen and the pool sparkling in the background, their labor makes for great Instagram fodder.

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