You may be familiar with Delaney Rowe as the insufferable lead of an indie movie, the female bartender in every movie written by a man, or the girl who’s convinced you’re absolutely obsessed with her. Rowe has developed an audience of millions with her satires common film tropes. The actress, writer, and content creator can pull off virtually any character archetype, but she knows how to act when she's off camera too.
Rowe appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this year and revealed that she hustled her way into becoming a personal chef to the stars with little to no cooking knowledge. She filled in the gaps by googling recipes in the bathroom and using creative presentations to successfully impress her clients, ranging from professional athletes to Marvel director Stan Lee.
Rowe joined us in the Delish Kitchen Studios to test her culinary abilities. We tasked her with making our Jerk Shrimp Pineapple Bowls from a photo alone. While she was relying on her instincts, she also talked to us about her life, career, and hottest takes on food.
How did you get started as a private chef?
Right out of college, I think I started working at some restaurant as a hostess or whatever. I found a job online, basically a woman in her mid 40s looking for a helper around the house for meal prep kind of stuff. I started with that. And I thought maybe I could like parlay this into some sort of business.
So I made little fliers and I ran all around the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and stuffed them into mailboxes. They had some pictures of food and then a big headshot on the back that said “Delaney Rowe, Private Chef.” And it landed in the right people's mailboxes.
I missed that time of my life. Life was simple. You just have to be on your feet for 12 hours and then leave work behind when it's done. Whereas now, you know, the crippling pressure to stay relevant humbles me every day.
What were your cooking skills like when you started? How are they now?
My cooking skills when I started were like a four or five, but my plating skills were like a 10. I feel like now I'm probably closer to, like, an eight.
What are your go-to plating tips and tricks?
My entire career in the food world is predicated on microgreens, right? That's how you make something look fancy and incredible. You sprinkle that on top and everything looks gourmet all of a sudden.
Now that I’m growing up, I’m starting to value something like having a linen cabinet. there's something sexy about it that affects me. It’s one of the sneaky ways to impress people, when you set the table and you have good linens.
What was it like cooking in celebrities’ homes?
I was always around their age. So I guess it really just was hanging out, like you've become part of the family. I never really had any sort of nightmare clients. But you stay through dinner and sometimes they come back with, like, dates or friends or whatever. So you're definitely experiencing a lot of their personal life, like things that you just shouldn't be seeing.
What was one of the craziest cooking projects you’ve done for a client?
One time I had to cook for, like, 15 NFL players for a bachelor party, and they wanted to do a steak night. And having to cook steak perfectly for a bunch of athletes who are just coming from a long day of boozing, that's pressure that has been unmatched since.
And they wanted martinis, so I had to batch martinis for 15 people. And obviously, you have to taste it to figure out if you did it right. I'm tampering a massive pitcher of martinis, tasting it to see if I'm getting the ratio right, and trying to do steaks at the same time. So I'm getting drunk and trying to make sure everything comes out perfectly medium rare. But you know what? I did it. And I was underpaid.
What kinds of things do you cook now? What cooking advice has carried over from your days as a private chef?
I cook every day, usually three times a day. I also like to host a dinner party with maybe eight to 16 people once a quarter. With a dinner party, you kind of have no choice. You kind of have to do chicken, it’s the one thing everybody eats. Which is so annoying because actually I find chicken really boring, unless there's, like, skin and bones and all of that fun stuff. But if I have a very rare group that will eat anything, I’d really fun to do a lamb stew.
What I’ve learned is to keep your space nice and tight and never show fear. Don’t let them see you panic, because ultimately, you're cooking for someone. It’s a free meal. I have people over all the time and they ask me, “how do you stay so relaxed when you're cooking for 12 people at a dinner party?” And I'm like, I drink wine.
If you could invite anybody to one of your dinner parties, who would be on the guest list?
Sarah Paulson. I want Marisa Tomei there. I want Sam Rockwell there. I want Kerry Washington there. I want to intersperse them with friends because I want to see how everybody vibes. So I’d also do my mom and sister, and then a wild card. Like JoJo Siwa, I think she would be fun.
A lot of your work now pokes fun at common character archetypes. What are your favorite cliches in food TV and movies?
I love an extremely foul-mouthed kitchen staff. Like just cursing at each other like that, to me, is really funny. I’ve never worked in a kitchen so I don't know if that's real. I think it is real though. [The Bear] is creating a breed of dirty hot boy, you know what I mean? You know, like messy white shirt and tatted. And you know what? I’m not mad about it.
