According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s 2024 statistics, Americans spend an average of 322 hours a year on cooking- and that doesn’t even include grocery shopping. For many, it’s a far-off dream to have a private chef and reclaim hundreds of hours that could be dedicated to family, work, or travel. For some, however, hiring a private chef is not just feasible, but necessary.
Chef Debbie Solomon caters to the latter, most notably as a private chef to Rihanna since 2013. She has also worked for a number of other A-list celebrities, most recently John Legend and Chrissy Teigen.
Chef Debbie’s cuisine is a reflection of her blended story. She is native to Kingston, Jamaica with an upbringing marked by two periods: her time in Jamaica, and her time in Brooklyn, NY after her family moved there when she was 13 years old. She supported her mother’s catering business as a sous-chef in childhood. “In the moment, when you’re a kid and expected to do certain things like wash these meats and season them, you don’t realize that it’s really preparing you for your career,” she explained to the Sentinel.
As she blossomed into her 20s as a New Yorker in the sales industry, she felt an underlying pull to attend the French Culinary Institute. “I’d ask myself, ‘what is it that you’re really into? What are you passionate about?’ I knew I didn’t want to be in sales forever [because] I was making a good living, but it didn’t make me feel like I was living my purpose,” she observed.
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“I remember walking in [The French Culinary Institute] and I was like, ‘wow’. I just knew. I registered and when I saw the cost of it, I figured out how to get together the down payment. It took me five years and when I turned 30, [my] school year started.”
As she reflected on her lessons from FCI (now the Institute for Culinary Education), she is ultimately grateful for learning how to elevate her cooking while remaining gustatorily truthful to her roots. Upon graduation, Debbie was aware that the deep, humbling work was just beginning.
“My uncle told me, whenever you go to school you also need to go and get practical experience. I needed to learn the trade,” she reminisced. Through multiple different kitchens, she finally landed a job at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood.
It was during her time here that Rihanna’s management reached out to her, and the rest is history.
“I knew I wanted to be a private chef. I saw how much my mom struggled [in the catering business] and I when I was young, I was like, ‘I’ll become a chef…but I don’t want to struggle.’”
Now, Debbie calls herself a “whenever, whatever chef”. Despite its blaise-blaise feel, this phrase really details her discipline: she provides any meal, whenever the client desires.. “Usually, I get up at 4am to make a client’s dinner, which doesn’t take over 3 hours. Then I take my daughter to school, and the client has their meals by 10 a.m.,” she explained.
“But, if a client tells me that they want a steak at 2 a.m., or a lasagna at 8 a.m. because they landed in a different country, then that’s what the client gets. At the end of the day, [being a chef] is a service, as a client you need to be able to tell me what you want and I provide it.”
And provide it, she does. Debbie has worked in hotel kitchens across the world while touring with an artist, preparing to fulfill their culinary curiosities within a moment’s notice. For those unfamiliar with that type of rockstar life, this included ensuring the artist receives a menu pre-travel. The artist and team also develop a rider for each hotel location, detailing the types of foods and drinks they’d like stocked in the hotel kitchen.
It comes as no surprise that Debbie made multiple sacrifices to follow that pace of life. During the pandemic, however, her life slowed to a sustainable pace with the birth of her daughter. Now, three years later, she is focused on staying and cooking from home so that she can spend time with her “miracle baby” and family. Still, she remains a private chef to Rihanna: “She’s a Caribbean girl, I’m a Caribbean girl. Just who I landed as a client, it’s just divine intervention.
God provided me with the most perfect client.”
Staying out of the limelight while always mastering her craft, Chef Debbie has gladly entered a new golden era of her career where she has the privilege to enjoy the fruits of her labor and devote time to those closest in her life.
Stay aligned via her Instagram, @chefdebbiesolomon
