What Do Yacht Chefs Actually Cook? A Day in the Galley

People picture a yacht chef plating one beautiful dinner a day. Let me walk you through what a charter day actually looks like.

5:00am — Coffee, then breakfast prep

Up before the guests. Fresh pastries or bread on, fruit platters, juices, and whatever cooked breakfast has been requested — plus a full crew breakfast, because ten hungry crew are up before the guests too. Being prepared is everything; I learned that cooking breakfast for a hundred dive-boat guests straight out of a 6am dive on the Great Barrier Reef.

Mid-morning — Lunch prep and the crew meal

Guest lunch might be a long Mediterranean spread on the aft deck, sushi and sashimi, or a beach picnic run ashore by tender. At the same time you're feeding the crew — and honest truth, crew food matters as much as guest food. A well-fed crew is a happy boat, and when morale dips, mealtimes are the one thing everyone looks forward to.

Afternoon — The quiet hour that isn't

Bread for tomorrow, ice creams and sorbets churning, dinner proteins prepped, stocks on, canapés for sunset. If we're near a port, this is when provisioning happens — sometimes a proper market run, sometimes juggling deliveries in a language you don't speak. And guest requests come whenever they come: fresh cookies at 3pm is a classic.

Evening — The main event

Canapés with drinks, then dinner. This is where the pressure lives — guests will remember the food above almost everything else on a charter. Some nights it's a relaxed family dinner, others a seven-course tasting menu because the primary guest wants to impress. Whatever was promised at the preference sheet stage, tonight it has to appear, perfectly, regardless of what the sea is doing.

The cooking itself

Everything. Modern Australian is my base — amazing ingredients, my spin, a lot of Asian influence, without too much fuss. But the job is cooking what the guest dreams of: their grandmother's pasta, a dish they once ate at a five-star hotel (I once needed four attempts and a photo to nail a corned beef hash a guest remembered), keto, kosher, vegan, and a kids' menu — all in the same service.

Sixteen-to-eighteen-hour days during charter are normal. It's probably the hardest job on the boat — most captains will agree. It's also, for the right person, the best one.

Want to know if you could handle it — and how to get there? Start with the free Module 1 of Become a Yacht Chef.