‘I’m a private chef to footballers – the best carbonara has ingredient you won’t believe’ | Football | Sport

There are many perks that come with being an elite footballer. The lifestyle, the wage, the holidays, but few would outweigh the food. Like everything, it would come at a significant cost, yet by the looks of things, it would be worth every penny.

As a result, the private chef industry has boomed in recent years, with players keen to have a taste of the high life even when they’re eating from home. There’s the nutrition factor too, as footballers look to make sure whatever is going into their bodies is helping contribute to their performance.

And now, those making the delicious meals for the players are lifting the lids on the secrets behind footballers’ favourite foods. One of the most eyebrow-raising requests, according to chef Jonny Marsh, came from ex-Manchester City ace Kevin De Bruyne.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Marsh explained De Bruyne had come to him asking for beetroot carbonara. Despite the peculiar sound, Marsh said: “He had a game the next day and I got told by the City nutritionist that it was great for exercise performance, so I cooked it in it and made it look like cherry laces.”

Marsh’s list of clients is star-studded, with the chef having prepared meals for the likes of Ilkay Gundogan, Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, and Leroy Sane in the past. At his busiest, Marsh was cooking for four players at once: Luke Shaw, Christian Eriksen, Vitalii Mykolenko and Ian Maatsen.

He said: “Aaron Ramsey (the Burnley one). I don’t even think he’ll mind me digging him out. For the first year, it was very much mash, meat and veg… at a push. Or curry, rice, naan bread. He was religiously stuck in his ways. It got to a point when I said I wanted a bit of freedom to experiment.

“All of a sudden it went from one day a week where I could experiment to three days to, for the final year and a half, he’d say he didn’t even need to know what I was cooking. What he wouldn’t eat from when I started to what we were eating when I finished with him, you wouldn’t even think it was the same person.”

‘I’m a private chef to footballers – the best carbonara has ingredient you won’t believe’

There are many perks that come with being an elite footballer. The lifestyle, the wage, the holidays, but few would outweigh the food. Like everything, it would come at a significant cost, yet by the looks of things, it would be worth every penny.

As a result, the private chef industry has boomed in recent years, with players keen to have a taste of the high life even when they’re eating from home. There’s the nutrition factor too, as footballers look to make sure whatever is going into their bodies is helping contribute to their performance.

And now, those making the delicious meals for the players are lifting the lids on the secrets behind footballers’ favourite foods. One of the most eyebrow-raising requests, according to chef Jonny Marsh, came from ex-Manchester City ace Kevin De Bruyne.

Speaking to The Daily Mail, Marsh explained De Bruyne had come to him asking for beetroot carbonara. Despite the peculiar sound, Marsh said: “He had a game the next day and I got told by the City nutritionist that it was great for exercise performance, so I cooked it in it and made it look like cherry laces.”

Marsh’s list of clients is star-studded, with the chef having prepared meals for the likes of Ilkay Gundogan, Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, and Leroy Sane in the past. At his most busy, Marsh was cooking for four players at once: Luke Shaw, Christian Eriksen, Vitalii Mykolenko and Ian Maatsen.

He said: “Christian was always first,’ he says. ‘He liked to eat early because he had kids then Ian wasn’t even 100 yards down the road. That was a lifesaver. So I had two done before 6.30pm. Luke Shaw liked to eat at 7pm and then Vitalii Mykolenko used to eat late, which was perfect.”

Marsh goes on to thank John Terry for putting his own name on the map, even if the ex-Chelsea ace wasn’t a client himself. He said: “John was the guy that made it clinical. How things were prepped, how things were cooked, how things were packaged, how things were stored, how things were delivered. He liked things weighed out and labelled. He’d FaceTime me every night to ask how heating instructions were done. He always said to me, ‘We’re part of the one per cent club, Jonny. It’s all about the one per cent’.”

Marsh speaks about how Terry posted a video of Marsh on social media and from that point on, the requests came flooding in. But as for the fussiest footballer when it comes to food? An easy answer for chef Marsh.

He said: “Aaron Ramsey (the Burnley one). I don’t even think he’ll mind me digging him out. For the first year, it was very much mash, meat and veg… at a push. Or curry, rice, naan bread. He was religiously stuck in his ways. It got to a point when I said I wanted a bit of freedom to experiment.

“All of a sudden it went from one day a week where I could experiment to three days to, for the final year and a half, he’d say he didn’t even need to know what I was cooking. What he wouldn’t eat from when I started to what we were eating when I finished with him, you wouldn’t even think it was the same person.”