How to choose a private chef for a villa in Cannes

The questions almost always arrive in the same order: style of cooking first, price second, and only at the end, “is he used to private houses?”. In practice that last question decides whether a stay works, by a wide margin.

A chef can have an impeccable restaurant record and be lost in a villa. The two trades share a technique, not a way of working. In a restaurant kitchen the equipment is known, the brigade is there, hours are fixed, and the guest does not come to discuss the menu at eleven at night. In a private house, none of that holds.

1. Experience of private houses before the prestige of the CV

The first criterion is not the names of the establishments worked in, but the number of assignments completed in private residences. A chef who has spent several seasons in villas knows things learned nowhere else: working alone, without commis or dishwasher; coping with a domestic oven; serving lunch for four and dinner for sixteen on the same day; and above all staying invisible in a house he is sharing.

Ask directly: how many stays in private houses, over what durations, and in what kind of properties? The answers are very revealing.

2. Duration changes the profile you need

This is the most underestimated point. A single dinner is an exercise in precision: one menu, one service, one execution. A week is an exercise in stamina and variety.

Across seven days a chef has to produce some twenty meals without ever seeming to repeat himself, while knowing the family will eat out on some days and come home late on others. Chefs who are excellent across one service are not all able to hold that pace, and the reverse is equally true.

You do not choose the same chef for a birthday dinner and for two weeks of family holidays. It is the first thing I check.

3. What the kitchen can actually do

Villas around Cannes hold surprises. Magnificent houses have kitchens designed to reheat rather than cook; modest apartments on the Croisette are perfectly equipped. If you are renting, you will often discover the kitchen at the same time as the chef does.

Worth checking before fixing a menu:

• How many burners can genuinely be used at once
• The size of the oven, and whether there is only one for the whole table
• Refrigeration: a domestic fridge fills fast for twelve people
• How much work surface is available
• Whether there is a dishwasher, and how long its cycle runs
• Whether a summer kitchen exists, and how it is equipped

A few photographs sent ahead are enough. An experienced chef will know at once what he can propose, and what is better avoided.

4. Diets and children, from the first conversation

Dietary constraints are not an execution detail: they steer the choice of chef. A table with one coeliac guest, two vegetarians and three children under eight does not call for the same profile as a gastronomic dinner for adults.

Equally, children often mean a second, earlier sitting. A chef used to families absorbs that naturally; another will experience it as an imposition, and it will show.

5. Coordination with the household staff

If a housekeeper, butler or cleaning team already works in the villa, the division of duties must be clear before the chef arrives. Who lays the table? Who serves? Who washes up after dinner? Who clears the kitchen in the morning?

These questions look trivial. They are nonetheless the leading cause of tension in a house during a stay. Ten minutes of clarification saves a week of adjustment.

6. Style of cooking, last

It comes last not because it hardly matters, but because there is no point choosing a Japanese specialist if the criteria above are unmet. Once the frame is set, style becomes the right question: Mediterranean, classical gastronomy, market cooking, serious pastry, high-level family cooking.

In Cannes in summer, Mediterranean and market cooking dominate requests by a wide margin, logical enough, given what the stalls offer at that time of year.

Four things to have ready before calling

• Your dates, even approximate, and the exact town
• How many people are staying, and how many guests are expected
• Which meals you genuinely want covered
• Dietary needs, allergies and the ages of any children

With those four elements a serious search can begin. Without them, it is only guesswork.