How to Meet and Date a Chef

In some ways celebrity chefs are the new rock stars of popular culture – they are highly creative and appear dashing on the screen and cover pages – no wonder then that they command a large fan following among members of the opposite sex. However even if such celebrities seem beyond your reach, you can still meet and date a single who looks as yummy as he/she cooks.

The delicious bit first

Dating a chef immediately conjures up image of a gorgeous looking guy or woman conjuring exotic dishes for you on a home date. It is no small matter that you get to be pampered by a man or woman who can really cook, someone that can turn every day ingredients into delectable, irresistible dishes. The prospect of haute cuisine coming right from your very own kitchen is too attractive to resist. Moreover there is the glamour that is now associated with the image of a chef. People all over are stepping up and taking notice of the world of gourmet food, exotic food, artistic food which has translated into high popularity and huge prospects for chefs. Thus not only you get to have a guy or girl who knows his/her way about in the kitchen, you get to live the good life too – attending lifestyle events, high-profile dinners, traveling to exotic places and basking in media attention.

Where to meet them

If all this sounds the very things you are looking for in a partner, you need to hang out at places where you can meet the wizards of the culinary world. Restaurants are the first thing that come to mind – after you have had a particularly delicious meal, you can ask to compliment the chef and if lucky, you can discover that he/she is single too. However a restaurant is the place of work for your potential date and he/she may be too busy or consider it unprofessional to fraternize with customers. But of course if you feel an instant connection, there is no harm in suggesting that you take his/her number or he/she give you a call.

Going online is these days a highly popular way to connect with singles who enjoy the same things as you do. Thus food blogs and culinary websites are likely to feature chefs usually as expert advisers and maybe on a regular basis too. So scouring the internet for such sites can offer you ways to network with chefs and if lucky hit off with a single too. Then again these days, almost every famous chef is authoring a book too; thus book launches and book signings could turn out to be opportunities to meet experts of the culinary business. Also be on the lookout for media events like an interactive session with a chef or a demo at a shopping mall which are usually used to promote the launch of a store, restaurant or product.

Be innovative

Chefs are highly creative people – they not only whip up delicious meals for a living, but come up with innovative ways to enjoy food. So if you wish to make an impression on your chef date, try and come up with unusual ways to woo him/her. For instance when buying a present, steer clear of cook-books – he/she probably owns every cookbook under the sun. Instead, get creative and try something he wouldn't expect, like a relaxing two-hour massage. Also be open to mid-week and mid-day dates since the peak working hours of chefs are the evenings and weekends.

Now the bad news

Like any other successful professional, chefs too lead very busy lives. He/she might be spending 70 hours per week at the restaurant and what’s more most holidays like Christmas, New Year as well as romantic occasions like Valentines Days are likely to be especially busy times for your partner. You may never get to spend an entire Christmas day with your partner or leave for a long vacation which is absolutely unrelated to his/work.

But then again long hours come with almost every kind of successful job or enterprise. It’s how your date deals with the stress outside work that you should watch out for. If s/he is still tense even when out of the kitchen, this is a warning that they cannot separate their work life from their personal life. Alternately suggest a restaurant of your choice and observe your date in action. If he/she is rude to the service staff or sends back a plate because he/she didn't like the presentation, then it could indicate a highly critical or even obsessive personality which is not really unusual among extremely creative people. But if you find that your date cannot enjoy a nice meal, then he/she may have a problem with enjoying the simpler things in life.

Finally even if you and your chef partner are madly in love with each other, don't expect him/her to cook a four-course Italian meal for you every night. He/she will be completely exhausted after work, and the last thing your date will want to do after a hectic day in the kitchen is stand up for two hours cooking at home again.

But then your chef partner having a demanding job does not mean that you cannot have a relationship. In fact if you’re independent, or work late hours yourself, dating a chef will give you that space you need. Above all, there are the perks that come with the job – you will get to know more about food while dating a chef than you have ever known in your life. And on the rare occasion you have a night free to go out to eat, other restaurants will be sure to lavish extra attention on you. Finally being a creative person, your chef will pamper you with all the sensory pleasures of food – their taste, texture, aroma and colors. So, provided you are ready to make a few adjustments, what better way to spice up your love life than by dating a chef?