Chefs who cooked for Bill Clinton, the queen and Prince Charles, and celebrities like Justin Timberlake, on the challenges of catering to the mega-rich and famous

Uwe Opocensky cooked for the British royal family, and for billionaires’ parties with celebrity entertainers, and once worked for 72 hours straight

Andrea Zamboni cooked for soccer team AC Milan on a China tour, while Vicky Cheng catered the wedding of Chryseis Tan, daughter of a Malaysian billionaire

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Chefs like Andrea Zamboni (right) who have catered for the super-rich look back at the exclusive events they’ve been a part of.

Published: 8:15pm, 7 Jan 2021Updated: 8:32pm, 7 Jan 2021

On the entertainment deck of a multimillion-dollar superyacht, a huge white truffle from Alba in Italy is shaved over scrambled eggs, while a magnum of vintage Krug chills in a cooler.

That relaxed, luxurious lifestyle may be what the super-rich enjoy, but for those who work to make this kind of thing possible, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. Chefs who cook for the mega-wealthy lead a stressful life as they cater to the whims of their bosses while making it all seem seamless.

Uwe Opocensky is now the executive chef at the Island Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong and its Restaurant Petrus, but early in his career he worked in London for the famed Swiss chef Anton Mosimann.

“With outside catering, we did meals on the Orient Express [a luxury train], we were regulars at 10 Downing Street [the British prime minister’s residence], Buckingham Palace – we got the royal warrant – and even cooked at the White House, in Washington.”

Uwe Opocensky is the executive chef at the Island Shangri-La hotel in Hong Kong and its Restaurant Petrus.

After joining Mosimann’s in the early 1990s, Opocensky quickly moved through the ranks and was head chef within 18 months. It was brutally hard work, in at 6am and out at 1am six days a week – but with it came unique access, meaning that Opocensky cooked for (and talked with), among others, the Prince of Wales.

“We cooked for the royal family’s shooting weekends and I remember having a cup of tea with Prince Charles and talking to him for 45 minutes in front of a roaring fire. He loved a proper fried English breakfast and game dishes. Everything was British heritage produce and when he was entertaining it was always meat from his own butchers. We’d go to cook at his estate at Highgrove [in Gloucestershire, western England] up to three times a month.”