When Neil Snowball handed in his notice at Gordon Ramsay’s Pétrus in early 2016, he was giving up a coveted head chef role at the Michelin-starred restaurant in London’s exclusive Belgravia neighborhood.
Snowball wasn’t leaving to jump ship to a similar position at another starred establishment, however. He had in his sights his own restaurant — and knew that the best way to accelerate his ambition was to swap the familiarity of fine dining kitchens for superyacht galleys. Soon, he was on the 273-foot Feadship yacht Savannah, earning almost four times what he had on land.
Snowball’s path was uncharted territory; yachting has long been a niche in the restaurant industry. “There’s some stigma that yacht chefs aren’t real chefs, so the crossover isn’t easy,” he tells Robb Report.
The yacht Savannah, where chef Neil Snowball presides over the galley
Yet the signs are there that this stigma is starting to fade. In the past year alone, speciality placement agency Mymuybueno Private Chefs has seen a 55 percent increase in chefs with extensive Michelin-starred restaurant experience signing up to its books.
As with Snowball, money is the primary motivation, explains Mymuybueno founder Justine Murphy. The average head chef on a yacht has the potential to earn a tax-free monthly salary of between $8,000 to $13,000 per month. The premium for Michelin experience can see an extra $2,000 to $4,000 added to that.
“These chefs largely want to come and earn the money that the luxury industry will provide them for a year or two and then return to land to work towards their own restaurant,” Murphy, who herself spent six years as a private chef on yachts, explains.
Before they even step onboard, however, there’s an audience of yacht owners eagerly awaiting them.
“If you are going to have your own private chef, the preference is for someone with experience in Michelin establishments because of what they can bring to the table, such as modern trends or even the very dishes from the restaurant the owner loves,” Murphy says.
Meeting yacht owners in Switzerland is how German chef Sascha Lenz fell into the industry. “I had a Michelin-starred restaurant in Saint Moritz and I met a family who asked if I could come and cook for them privately,” Lenz says. Today, he’s the rotational head chef on Avantage, a fully-private 285-foot Lürssen yacht that was delivered in 2020.
Lenz says if he’d known how easy it was to make such a salary on yachts with his experience, he would have made the switch a decade earlier. But it’s more than just money — and a two-months-on, two-months-off job rotation — that keeps him on the water.
“I get to travel and to see the world and cook with the best produce,” Lenz says. “Isn’t that the dream?”
The photos from Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and St. Barths interspersed with pretty plated dishes and daily banter with crew offer Lenz’s 180,000-plus followers on Instagram (@billionaire_ch3f) a glimpse into the yacht chef lifestyle. Lenz knows that social media accounts such as his inspire some of the most talented land-based chefs.
One of chef Sascha Lenz’s spreads aboard Avantage in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat
Sascha Lenz
“People see that I’m shopping in local markets or cooking a fresh tuna that the crew reeled in,” he explains. “In a restaurant, that piece of tuna would already be five or six days old before we received it.”
While his job may look picture-perfect, Lenz says the swap from land to water required a total mindset shift. “You have to change how you cook,” he says. “You don’t have the manpower you need, nor the time, nor any of the pots and equipment you would use in a Michelin-starred restaurant.”
Murphy agrees that, for some chefs, the transition can be a shock to the system. “They are without the support system in a restaurant, where each chef is responsible for a different section. On a yacht you are doing it all on your own, or with one other if the vessel is over 60 meters [197 feet],” she explains.
And not all of them are cut out for the industry, she adds.
“There are a lot of important attributes to have, especially humility,” says Murphy. “I see it all too many times, chefs who come in and jump around and leave before they have even started, because it’s a whole lot harder than they imagined.”
Others, like Snowball, end up staying much longer than planned. Having saved enough money in two years on yachts to start his own restaurant, Snowball spotted an enormous opportunity in the industry. Along with business partner Matthew Hewlett, the ex-head chef at the three-Michelin-starred The Ledbury in London, he’s plowed his savings into the establishment of Opus Provisions, supplying Michelin-level quality produce to other yacht chefs.
It’s been four years since the business was founded and the duo is on the cusp of topping $5 million in revenue this year. “We’ve applied our restaurant work ethics and determination to the project and built it up with blood, sweat, and occasionally tears,” he says. “We are able to provide the products that guests on board are looking for, which in turn makes the galleys a happier place for the chefs to work—we love what we do.”
