Life As A Superyacht Chef

Biography Brief

Superyacht Chef - Spike Berta

For over 20 years I have cooked professionally. During this time I have developed a passion for British, Mediterranean and Global Fusion cuisine. Recently I have explored Thai and Japanese cooking, and have a real love for Seafood - both creating dishes and eating them!

My cooking career has taken me to many places, where I have been fortunate enough to absorb knowledge from local dishes; London, Nottingham, Greece, Austria, Turkey, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Italy and Croatia. These are just some of the places I have been lucky enough to work in and around.

During the past 2 years, I have been working on Superyachts across the Mediterranean, and have developed a love of the lifestyle and career that I have chosen. There is always fresh, exciting produce to be discovered in every port, and of course the sun shines a little more than in the UK!

1. What got you into this fabulous industry?

I had been working a ski season in St Anton - Austria, for a high-end chalet company, when I was asked to join their sister chalet in Zermatt. The contract was for two weeks to help their chef, Charlotte Louise Boden, with a wedding party.

She was a lovely girl, with a fantastic flair for presentation, and her menus where creative and stunning! (Not just your bog standard chalet host I thought to myself!)

During our brief time together she told me that she was a chef on yachts in the summer, and regaled me with stories about all the wonderful places she had been, the amazing food she had cooked and the interesting people she had met along the way. Then I knew yachting was for me. I don’t think I would be in the industry now if it wasn’t for her, she was my lucky break!

2. What is your favorite style of cooking?

Luckily for me I have always been a fan of fish and seafood. So coming to work in the Mediterranean was a dream come true for a chef who had been based in the Alps for 4 years - where trying to access good quality fresh sea foods was almost impossible!

I love to cook modern Italian fish dishes with my own hint of Thai fusion.

3. Have you ever been put on the spot by yacht guests and had to pull something incredible out of the bag that you have never made before?

Well believe it or not it would have to be lobster!

Before working on the yachts I didn’t have much access to luxury items like lobster, and on the odd occasion that I did, they arrived already cooked, so I didn’t have to kill them.

It was a steep learning curve in my first week of guests, and I can tell you those first 12 lobster where most definitely the hardest to prepare.
Now after my 3rd season, I am very used to preparing lobster and sometime chuckle to myself about how petrified I was in that first week!

4. When did you become interested in cooking?

I have always loved my food. As a small child I was always eating and my little fat belly was proof of that!

I spent many an hour helping mum out in the kitchen, she wasn’t the most confident cook but whatever she made, she made with love. For the 1970s she was quite adventurous, bringing Italian dishes like lasagne and crispy white–bait to the table, which I loved.

5. Where did you study?

I’m old school from the university of life! After leaving home at 16 I went straight into my first job washing pots and pans in a tiny Italian restaurant on Upper St in Islington. 10 years later I was working in a fine dinning restaurant in Nottingham, and then spring boarded into luxury chalets, villas and lodges across Europe.

6. What is your favorite meal to eat in/and out?

Sushi and sashimi have played a big part in my dinning out scene since 1997, when the first Yo-Sushi opened in London. From the first moment I tried sushi I haven’t been able to get enough since!

As for eating at home, I like family style meals, platters of cured meats, cheeses, breads, salads, crunchy vegetables, steaks and lots of fresh seafood. I tend to serve in big platters, like tapas, so guests can help themselves. Quite often the platters will keep coming all evening till everyone’s full… And then I hit them with dessert!

7. Do you enjoy cooking for yourself, or would you rather a night out to a restaurant more?

If I am cooking for others I love to cook, but if it’s just me, and the other half, we often head out to a restaurant. I adore eating out as it exposes me to fresh, new styles of cooking. I would be a dull chef if I only ate my own food!

8. Do you like watching reality TV chefs?

I like the Saturday kitchen on BBC, and love the Great British Bake Off with Mary Berry.

I often think to myself, "What would Mary say about that cake?"

Some of my favourite chefs include Tom Kitchin, Michel Roux and my favourite cookbook at the moment is The Cookbook by Ottoleghi.

9. How exactly is it different working on board a yacht to a land based restaurant kitchen?

I am very used to working on my own in the galley as I have been a sole chef for nearly 10 years now, but I could see how most chefs that are new to the industry would find it hard to adjust. I tend to find chefs based in the UK stick to their chosen path; pastry chef, starter chef etc. but as a yacht chef you need to have a broad knowledge of everything.

Provisioning is an art form that takes a few seasons to perfect and it is the one thing I found most difficult when I joined yachting. With a land based job if you forget anything you can probably have it sent to the kitchen or send someone out to get it, if you forget anything out at sea it can be a big problem.

10. Do you have any tips for any new crew starting out on the chef route in the industry?

Find out what your weaknesses are and brush up on your skills, for example if you’ve never worked as a pastry chef then do a pastry course before you come out. You need to have your bases covered.

Other than that:

Be confident, be yourself, and be prepared to work harder than you have ever before!

Life As A Superyacht Chef - Spike Berta