At Le Cafe de Plage in the heart of Santa Monica, Emily Ruybal and I sat in bubblegum pink chairs under a pink and white striped umbrella, discussing the post-grad experience. Slouched slightly in her chair, Ruybal played with the strap of her purse mindlessly as she told me about her experience moving to Los Angeles, crazy first roommates, and her new position as an “influencer.”
Clad in overalls and a grey hoodie, Ruybal seemed the epitome of a laid-back Californian, but a chunky gold necklace revealed her spunk and bubbly nature. For a long time her experience in Los Angeles had essentially nothing to do with the culinary industry. After attending the University of Colorado Boulder, she moved to Los Angeles in 2017 to pursue her dream of working in entertainment.
LA proved challenging, and Ruybal did what many young people in Southern California find themselves doing at one point or another: working numerous odd jobs, including sales representative, a hostess, a part-time reporter for the NBA, and a temporary assistant at Warner Bros.
The only thing that felt “right” was her affinity for food. LA surely answered her hunger for a “foodie” city, but she wanted more. Constantly cooking for her roommates and friends, she decided to start a cooking TikTok and Instagram account with the intention of sharing her creations with her inner circle. Her dishes reached far more than just them.
“Two years in I had a dinner party series that went somewhat viral,” Ruybal explained. “My whole thing was cosplaying as a private chef for my friends. After that I was like, ‘well, maybe it would be fun to be a private chef’ because I was seeing all these private chefs on TikTok. But again, I had no culinary experience, really, or formal training.”
After being connected to a group called “Lot This Friend” that allows users to book people listed for different services (i.e. photographer, private chef, makeup artist), Ruybal landed her first client. On New Years Eve of 2023, she cooked for a dinner party in Silverlake. Despite the ease and friendliness of her clients, her lack of experience still gave her apprehensions. So, of course, she brought back-up.
“I put together a family style spread for 12 people. I brought two of my friends who were my servers, and they helped me do the dishwashing. They were mainly there too to help me ease my mind because of course I was having major impostor syndrome.”
Ruybal says she “owes it all” to social media. Social media brings in a large portion of her clients, with over 119.9k followers on TikTok and 27.9k on Instagram. “Obviously social media is a form of entertainment at the end of the day, like content that people consume, but for people like myself who are freelancers, it really is like my business card.”
Hernandez believes social media is work in itself-especially for those in the culinary industry. “In the past five to ten years, tragically in any specialized field that anyone works in, you need to be on social media, sharing your talents, your perspective, and showing people what you can do. That itself is work, that is a job.”
In addition to social media, Ruybal relies on that one dreaded word that many young people starting their career hear all-too often: networking. Although she cooks for specific families, she also has experience in so many other facets of the private food world, such as cooking for large events and one-off dinner parties, preparing food for bridal events, and meal preparation. These events allow her to pitch herself as a chef–the guests’ meal is her pitch.
“A lot of it is networking, and it’s what I love about those events,” Ruybal said. “When I’m at these bigger parties where there are like 20 people or more, I really do try to network and meet as many people as I can. I just feel like that’s another way to hand out my business cards to people.”
As Ruybal explained to me the numerous larger events she’s cooked and catered for, I couldn’t help but wonder how she keeps this business afloat. After all, she can’t employ her friends for every occasion. She laughed slightly, looking down. “I actually just hired my first employee–a part time kitchen helper. She went to culinary school, and she just reached out to me from TikTok.”
Ruybal’s welcoming and warm demeanor allowed our conversation to flow with ease–it was like talking with a friend. I wanted to learn more. I asked her if she could meet again later in the week. She laughed again slightly (she does that quite often), not because of the inquiry, but rather because of her reasoning: she was leaving to cook in the Bahamas for a family in a few days. It seemed as though she could hardly believe it herself.
Demand for private chefs and overall acceptance of private chefs have increased in recent years. With more tailored diets, exposure from social media, and increase in gatherings, the role of a private chef has expanded. According to Grandview Research, the demand is even anticipated to increase 8.0% from 2024 to 2030.
“I think the term ‘private chef’ used to be–not used to be, it still is–but it’s such a white label service, it’s such a high end luxury service,” Ruybal explained. “It is something now that can be more accessible. I think social media is proving that.”
Prior to becoming a private chef, Ruybal worked as a hostess and server at different restaurants in both Boulder and Los Angeles. Her front-of-house experience exposed her to the hierarchies within the culinary industry, as well as the demographics that comprise who is and isn’t recognized for their creations.
According to DataUSA, the head cooks and chefs workforce in the United States included 426,227 people, with 77.4% men and only 22.6% women in 2022. Even in current media chefs are always portrayed as men (think of the series “The Bear” or the film “Chef”), yet women do domestic cooking. Despite the current majority demographic of “real chefs”, Ruybal found the media inspired her in the opposite way.
“I grew up watching the Food Network, and I think that’s such a lost art now, but Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart and Barefoot Contessa, like all those shows were all female led, and I respected those women so much that it kind of paved the way for women in the kitchen,” said Ruybal.
One of Ruybal’s many jobs when moving to Los Angeles was working in sales for a luxury resale company. She frequented sprawling mansions in different LA neighborhoods, selling ultra-luxurious items such as Rolexes or Van Cleves. Coming from a middle class background in a small suburb of Colorado, she considered this a cultural shock.
When I asked her how she navigated this new landscape, she told me about balance–“matching someone’s energy while staying authentic to yourself,” is how she put it. Now, she’s in these environments all the time. Ruybal refuses to change herself or stray from her roots. Again, balance is everything.
Ruybal also emphasized the importance of managing the personal and the professional: being warm and personable while ensuring clients don’t view her as a “friend”. “Staying authentic to yourself-people like that and resonate with that,” she said.
