Inside the Life of a Private Chef for a High-Profile NBA Player, from $11k Grocery Trips to the 'Challenging' Part of the Job (Exclusive)

Stephany Victoria began cooking for the client in October 2023

• Stephany Victoria began her career as a private chef in early 2019, though her passion for cooking started much earlier in life
• In October 2023, through an agency, Victoria connected with an NBA player in Miami who was looking for an in-house private chef — a job she had never tried before
• In addition to developing menus, meal prepping and cooking, Victoria is also responsible for grocery shopping
• Since starting her job with the client one year ago, Victoria has continued to create content from her work on her TikTok and Instagram accounts, where she's amassed more than 676,000 and 444,000 followers, respectively

Stephany Victoria wakes up every day at 8 a.m. Before starting her job as a private chef, she spends her mornings focusing on herself: going to the gym, showering, making breakfast and catching up on personal errands.

Originally from Queens, New York, Victoria began her career as a private chef in early 2019, though her passion for cooking started much earlier in life. She tells PEOPLE while she always wanted to attend culinary school, she was already studying physical therapy as a teen, and pursuing formal culinary training didn’t seem like the right move at the time.

Instead, Victoria, who goes by @stephanyvicx on social media, taught herself to cook, learning from Food Network shows and by watching her grandmother and mother prepare traditional Dominican family recipes. "I just followed a lot of recipes online and would also experiment," she says.

Eventually, Victoria, who's also a certified yoga instructor, began posting her food creations on social media, and a few people reached out asking if she could do meal prep for them. This led her to her first client, a fashion influencer, for whom she began preparing and delivering meals.

Then, in October 2023, through an agency, Victoria connected with an NBA player in Miami who was looking for an in-house private chef — something she had never done before. (She cannot reveal the identity of the player.)

"I did a two-week trial and they loved my food," says Victoria, who moved to Florida for the job. "After the trial, they decided to keep me, but they wanted to hire me privately. They didn’t want me to stay with the [agency], which I felt bad about. But I said yes, and now I exclusively cook for the client under my own business."

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"Going into this job, I was nervous because my client is pretty high-profile, and I didn't know what to expect. I thought they might not be as friendly," she adds. "But they're actually very friendly and super cool. I truly enjoy working for them. It's been a really great experience."

During her first month on the job, Victoria happened to overcook a Thai-inspired dish, crying tiger steak. But "that was the only time something like that happened," she shares, adding, "they were very nice about it. They were like, 'The flavors were great. We just prefer our steak a little bit less cooked.' And I was like, 'Okay, noted.' "

@stephanyvicx

Another day in the office ✨