What is a Personal Chef?

I get asked this question ALL THE TIME. Did you ever wonder? The basic difference is that a private chef is employed by one person or family just to cook full time for them.  A personal chef, though, can have many clients and do different things.  I found this post by Tsuyoshi Inagaki which explains it nicely. 
While a personal and private chef have much in common there are a few key distinctions between them - particularly when it comes to duties, hours of work and expected salary.

A personal chef is usually self-employed, running their own professional culinary business. They choose their own clients and pre-prepared meals in clients’ homes on a weekly or monthly basis, leaving them ready to be consumed on the day, while others are refrigerated and reheated for the remaining days. 
Key differences:

A Private Chef:

• One dedicated client
• Often live in same residence as client
• Prepare fresh meals on demand
• Must be on-call/work odd hours
• Salaried employee
• May work in a team environment alongside housekeeper, butler etc
• May need to travel to different homes, on work trips or holidays
• Can develop deep, personal connection with client

A Personal Chef

• Multiple clients
• Does not live in the same residence
• Prepares meals in advance - leave instructions for clients to reheat/freeze
• Works their own set hours
• Self-employed – running their own business
• Has a business focus – deals with all aspect of culinary business from clients to marketing to budgeting to accounting

Cool huh?!  I think so. I love the idea of helping multiple families out and also having the flexibility to do dinner parties and other events on occasion.