No it’s the same but they are often self employed and do contracting rather than employed. They tend to produce restaurant quality food. Lots of specific requests. Vegan, non wheat etc 

They’re more likely to be thin and male 

Oh, and they turn up just to cook one dinner and leave you the washing up. That’ll be grands several. Nothing in the fridge for the morning. Who’s the joke on these days?

One of my friends is a private chef.  It seems like good money for the hours worked. 

Although to be fair, the hours do impinge a lot on social/family time, e.g. Thursday/Friday nights and weekends.

Yes, how dare people eat at mealtimes wtf boomers

heh

Just so you know, the food you’ve ordered comes out from the kitchen in a random order depending on how chef feels, yeah? You have a great night.

What used to be known as a caterer.

According to Lady Dorothy Nevill, it was Disraeli who set the fashion of employing a caterer for dinner parties to provide dinners at a fixed price per head to their host of a guinea each (G.M.Young,  ed., Early Victorian England, i, 155).

Round my way there have always been a couple of local people who are decent cooks who will either provide canapes for a drinks party or even a full sit down meal if you want that for a fee.  They have traditionally been yummy mummies looking for some flexible work to earn a few quid.  One of them and her team did my 40th for me.

Are they allowed to do lines of coke off the worktops and smoke joints on the patio?

We had some for a recent celebration.

Really good - consulted closely on the menu, top quality ingredients, provided the waiting staff, took care of all the clearing up.