How to choose the right private chef for your St Barts villa

Choosing a private chef is not reading a menu — it is trusting someone with the most intimate part of a stay. The right questions are rarely about credentials. Ask how the chef sources: the ones worth having do not order from a catalogue, they know the fishermen, the morning arrivals, the one farm that grows herbs on the island. Ask what happens when the langouste does not come in — the answer reveals whether they compose or merely execute.

Ask, too, about the invisible things: how they handle a child's allergy, a guest's diet named the night before, a dinner that must move outdoors because the wind turned. A great villa chef is half artisan, half concierge — present when needed, unseen the rest of the time. This is why, rather than send you a list to vet, we place a chef we already know: someone whose sourcing, discretion and judgment we have watched for years. The vetting is done, so the table can simply be trusted.