Kitchen Confidential

The glamorous, secret lives of private chefs

They’re the chefs who feed Hollywood celebs, sporting stars and billionaire CEOs. But the glam lives they portray on TikTok tell only half the story

In July, Tashea Channell Younge, a private chef and caterer from New York, flew to Los Angeles – all expenses paid – to cook a private dinner in a swanky kitchen for 15 people. She then cooked for Houston Texans NFL player Noah Brown (who earns $US2.6 million a year) and his teammates. Later that month, she was back in New York for a candlelit private dinner on the waterfront, complete with rose petals and a view of the Empire State Building.

The settings were glamorous. The pay was, too. In one month, Younge made nearly $20,000. And she documented all of it on TikTok.

A new chapter in the age of food celebrity is unfolding online, as many more cooks take up careers as private chefs and go public with the perks of the position. Those details used to be – like the job – completely private, with chefs and their clients keeping a veil of secrecy over the transaction, and many signing nondisclosure agreements.

But over the past several months, on TikTok and Instagram, the young, beautiful and culinarily inclined have begun straddling the worlds of catering and influencing as they share videos of their daily lives as private chefs, bouncing between luxury destinations or living rent-free in guest houses.

The money is good and there’s plenty of creative freedom. But what the videos don’t always show is how lonely the job can be.