They are all members of Club des Chefs des Chefs, in New York for their annual meeting, cruising up the river in style, cavorting above and below decks, gawking at appointments the likes of which they’ve never seen, including one, a painting of the Titanic (I think I’m right about this) hanging above the bed in the master bedroom (below), a devilishly playful inkling of the owner’s sense of the absurd.
A camera crew from the TV program, “Lifestyles of The Rich and Famous,” videotapes the goings on.
The Highlander glides north up the Hudson on its way to Hyde Park. There the chefs will rendezvous with officers, administrators, and instructors of the Culinary Institute of America. The chefs will tour the school, then have lunch. Roast goat will be on the menu.
Malcolm Forbes is letting the C.I.A. use his yacht. No charge. He is not aboard this time.
Three chefs, all of them lost to commercial foodservice because the very rich need—really need—their services and can offer perks, options, and benefits far superior to those offered by anyone in foodservice. Great chef that he is, when was the last time Twenty-One Federal’s chef, Bob Kinkead, took one of his chefs to the Orient?
Even though salaries are competitive—perhaps, in some cases, less—the excitement and pleasure of the job (to say nothing of the uncertainty of where you might serve your next meal: aboard the boss’s jet on its way to some exotic city, perhaps; or on his yacht headed for the Galapagos); the hours (fixed or not, predictable or not); the opportunity to cook in different locales and to meet celebrities and VIPs of every stripe and color one normally would never meet at say, “21” or Le Cirque, are fringe benefits—indeed, bonuses—that few, if any, restaurants can match.
As the labor market continues to shrink—no matter what the pay grade, be it lower, middle, or upper—the industry’s battle among restaurants for qualified help gets bloodier and bloodier, the wounded forced to trim products, modify or restrict menus and cut back on service, the casualties forced to close their doors forever.
The battle for the best is waged not only among commercial foodservice combatants, but with the Malcolm Forbeses of the world. For every chain, for every classy restaurant and hotel searching for a good chef there is someone very rich, his or her sword drawn, prepared to clash with you for the rights to someone just like that or better.
The very rich, you see, are different from you and me: they eat out a lot. Most of them have never seen a brown bag, let alone carried one. To a woman who is very rich, a brown bag is something you color-coordinate with expensive brown shoes.
Does anyone in your kitchen—a cook, chef, or a sous chef—have his or her heart set on becoming a personal chef? Read on.
When the very rich are not eating out a lot, they are eating in a lot; not like you or me eating in a lot. First of all, when they eat in, they eat in different places: duplexes and triplexes; yachts, private jets (some as big as United’s), beachfront and mountaintop mansions, their own islands, ranches, and hotels, resorts, condos and co-ops all over the world. Secondly, they really enjoy eating in; not because they don’t like to cook or do dishes (don’t be silly). When they eat in, they eat to eat; not like when they eat out. When they eat out, they don’t eat. They preen. They regard a special table the way cats regard a circle of sunshine. They curl up inside of it and lick their assets.
When the very rich eat at home, there is often a button at the head of the table that the master or mistress pushes to summon someone to the table to do something. That someone (never the chef) wears a number of hats: he or she is waiter, busboy, sommelier, concierge, there (never hovering) to clear the table, pour wine, or to find out if a guest needs something.
These chefs or cooks, who should be working for you, are not, by the way, untrained lackeys in the service of lords and ladies of manors; not nannies doubling as cooks; not a governess who may or may not know how to poach an egg; not a servant expert at backyard cook-outs and chauffeuring; not a valet, normally content to straighten a necktie or lace a corset; but someone who knows which side the master’s bread is buttered. The very rich have in their kitchens, certified, trained, educated, and learned chefs and cooks and specialists who know what wine to serve, when to serve it and where to fetch it if it’s unfetchable the instant it is needed. They are often bilingual and when they speak, in one tongue or two or three, know what to say, but only when spoken to. It’s possible one of them doubles as a dietitian and nutritionist who informs her employer what she should or should not eat.
The very rich employ topnotch chefs because when they eat in they want the food to be as good as it is when they eat out even though when they eat out it really doesn’t matter so much what the food tastes like. What matters is the space.
Clear?
When the very rich decide they need a personal chef, they send trustworthy employees, armed with explicit job descriptions, to the campuses of elite institutions such as the C.I.A. and Johnson & Wales. There they interview qualified candidates the school has handpicked in advance. Then, having decided who among the qualified is the best, they skim from the top the crème de la crème of the class, offering options, perks, and dollars the competition, such as hotel companies and restaurant chains, can never match.
You are looking desperately for good help—chefs who know how to cook; chefs who can supervise and administrate; chefs who can hire and fire; chefs who know how to manage a comfortable rapport with the front; chefs who are willing to put in 70 hours or more a week of intense and demanding work. Know what? Many of them are being picked off by millionaires such as Malcolm Forbes to labor in a sea of relative calm and peace, to enjoy fringe benefits, perks, working hours and conditions restaurants or restaurant companies could never offer.
On the return to Manhattan aboard his boss’s yacht, Christopher Long tells me, “I knew what I wanted to do the instant I graduated from the C.I.A. I wanted to be the private chef of a very wealthy man.”
He isn’t the only one.
Long is writing a cookbook. He’s 21 years old. You tell me: think it’ll be a hit?
*Cooks cook, chefs toil.
Footnote: Long’s
cookbook never got written; or, perhaps, he’s still writing it. I have no idea.
Matter of fact, I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing today.
RH’s May 1988 cover
story featured Christopher Long and Malcolm Forbes on the cover. The story was
based on my interview with Mr. Forbes. He wrote to me a few weeks after the
story ran: “Thanks a million,” he wrote, “for making me sound so literate and
so presentable in the pictures and in your interview. It takes great skill to
do either one and, particularly, it takes genius to give editorial coherence to
my hyped word flow.”
