Most yacht chef interviews test the wrong things. Here are the questions that actually predict whether a chef lasts the season — and how to read the answers.
I have sat on both sides of this interview. I have been the chef being assessed by a captain who did not know what to ask, and I am now the person screening chefs for vessels up to 88 metres. The gap between those two experiences is the reason for this guide.
Most yacht chef interviews go wrong in the same way. They test culinary ambition — signature dishes, plating philosophy, where someone trained — when the thing that decides whether a placement survives to September is almost always judgement and temperament. Food skill is table stakes. Nobody gets to a superyacht galley without being able to cook.
What follows is what I actually ask, and what I am listening for.
A yacht chef interview has to answer three questions, in this order of difficulty:
Weight your questions accordingly. If you spend forty minutes on cuisine and five on life onboard, you have tested the thing least likely to fail.
The single most useful question I know. Every chef with real sea time has one. Listen for whether they own their part in it, whether they describe a specific sequence of decisions, and whether the crew appear in the story as people or as obstacles.
A chef who says they have never had a bad charter has either not done many, or is managing you.
You are looking for a process, not a hero story. Good answers mention contacting the agent, local markets, what they carry as buffer stock, and which parts of the menu they would rewrite rather than chase. A chef who has genuinely done this will talk about the menu bending before the sourcing does.
Late dietary disclosure is routine now, not an edge case. Strong candidates go straight to cross-contamination control, separate prep and storage, briefing the interior team so service does not undo the galley's work, and confirming in writing. If the answer is only about substituting an ingredient, they are thinking like a restaurant.
My favourite quiet question. Crew food is where chefs reveal what they think of the people they live with. The answer tells you whether crew meals are an afterthought scraped from guest leftovers or something they have actually planned for — and crew morale on a long charter runs substantially through the galley.
Reluctance to engage with this question is a genuine warning sign.
A chef who cannot tell you their number has not been holding it. Note that the useful part is the second half — how they tracked it, what they did when a charter ran long, whether they reported variance to the captain before or after it happened.
An honest answer here is worth more than a polished one anywhere else. Chefs who say “nothing, I love all of it” are either very new or telling you what they think you want. The people who last are usually clear-eyed: the hours, no separation between work and home, the stretch in August where every day is identical.
Good chefs interview the vessel. They ask about guest numbers, charter weeks, whether there is a second chef, storage, the provisioning budget, and how long the last chef stayed. A candidate with no questions is a candidate who will accept anything — which sounds convenient until they leave in six weeks for the same reason.
A menu tasting reveals in two hours what an interview cannot reveal in two weeks. Watch the things that are not the food:
A paid trial across a real charter day is better still, and worth the cost. It is dramatically cheaper than a failed placement in the middle of a season.
This is the step people skip when they are in a hurry, and it is the step that costs them. Three rules:
Verify STCW Basic Safety Training and the ENG1 medical are current rather than merely present, confirm Food Safety Level 2 or Level 3 for a head chef role, and check visa status against your actual itinerary — a B1/B2 for US waters, appropriate Schengen arrangements for the Med. See our complete guide to hiring a yacht chef for the full process.
Most of the work above is screening, and screening is what an agency should have done before a CV reaches you. When I read a chef's CV I am reading different things than a recruiter is. I know which boats run brutal programmes and which owners are a pleasure. I know that two seasons on a busy charter 50m proves more than six months on a quiet private 70m. I know which questions expose someone who has been coasting, because I have been asked them.
That is the practical difference: you should be interviewing three or four people who have already been assessed by someone who has done the job — not sorting twenty applications to find out who can actually cook at sea.
“As a fellow chef himself, Dean truly understands the intricacies of our profession — from the high-pressure kitchen environment to the specific needs of clients looking for top culinary talent.”
Chef Imre Erdelyi — 63m M/Y Suri
Ask about the worst charter they have worked and what they did about it, how they provision in an unfamiliar port, how they handle a late dietary disclosure, and what crew food looks like on a busy day. These reveal judgement and temperament, which predict whether a placement lasts. Questions about signature dishes reveal almost nothing.
Yes. A tasting or paid trial reveals in two hours what an interview cannot reveal in two weeks — timing, cleanliness, how they behave under pressure, and how they leave the galley. A paid trial across a real charter day is better still.
Blaming previous crew for every departure, vagueness about dates or vessels, no yacht references, reluctance to discuss crew food, and treating provisioning or budget as someone else's problem. Frequent short stays without explanation is the clearest single signal.
Call them rather than accepting written references. Speak to captains and chief stewardesses who lived aboard with the chef, not restaurant employers. Ask directly whether they would take the chef back, and listen to the pause before the answer.
Three to five properly pre-screened candidates is normally enough. Interviewing twenty unscreened applicants produces worse decisions than interviewing four vetted ones, because volume pushes you toward CV pedigree rather than fit.
Yes, and most first interviews are now video calls across time zones. Keep the video interview for temperament and judgement, then arrange a tasting or trial in person before committing — the practical stage is the one that catches problems.
Send one brief and receive a shortlist of vetted, pre-screened yacht chefs within 48 hours — every one of them assessed by a working superyacht chef. Choose the fixed €2,500 fee or pay nothing until you hire. Every placement is backed by the 60-day replacement guarantee, and under MLC 2006 we never charge chefs a fee.