A 12-guest, 7-day charter on a 55m yacht runs through roughly 480 covers between breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners. The chef begins ordering 14 days before embarkation. By the time you land in Nice on a Saturday morning, the walk-in is full. If your dietary brief lands three days before that, your week starts with substitutions. If it lands the night before, the chef is improvising in a market in Antibes at 06:30 with a budget that is not yours to know.
The standard MYBA preference sheet that brokers send is six pages long, asks 47 questions, and is not the document the chef actually wants. Chefs want a shorter brief, written in the order they cook. Below is what that brief contains, why each line matters, and the format we have seen work on charters at three different price points. This is the document we send our own clients, with the names removed.
Why the broker's preference sheet underdelivers
The MYBA preference sheet is built for the broker. It asks about every guest's favourite cuisine, every allergy, every drink, every cocktail garnish, and it asks separately for each guest. The form is exhaustive. The chef receives it and spends 40 minutes mapping its contents into a usable shopping list. By the time the chef calls the captain to flag conflicts, three days have passed.
The shorter brief described below skips the fields the chef can resolve onboard (cocktail garnishes, herbal-tea preference) and front-loads the fields that need 10 days of lead time (ingredient sourcing, plate-by-plate dietary conflicts, supplier-specific items, special-occasion menus). The chef builds the week's menu in one pass, instead of three.
We have asked roughly two dozen 50m+ chefs which document they would rather have. Without exception they preferred the shorter brief. The MYBA form is still useful for the broker, who logs it for next year. The chef works from the short brief.
What the chef is actually planning
On a 55m yacht with 22 crew and 12 guests, the chef plans the week around three constraints. First, freezer and walk-in capacity. A 55m walk-in holds about 9 days of food for 12 guests if rotated. Second, the cruising-ground supply chain. A week on the French Riviera can resupply daily at any of six ports. A week in the Cyclades resupplies on Mykonos and Paros, with a two-day gap between. Third, the dietary conflicts among guests. A vegan-and-keto-and-gluten-free guest list means three separate menu lines on every service, which raises the prep load by roughly 60%.
The brief that helps the chef solves for all three. It tells the chef what ingredients to load before departure, what must be sourced en route, and where the conflicts are.
The 12-line brief
Here is the format. Twelve lines. Maximum two pages. We have seen this work from a 30m to a 90m, with different chef seniority.
Line 1: The guest list and seat plan. Names, ages, and who sits with whom at dinner. The chef adjusts portion size by age and uses the seat plan to decide which dish gets the longer presentation and which is plated. This is not the broker's place to redact. The chef needs first names.
Line 2: Hard allergies, with the medical detail. Severe peanut, severe shellfish, severe sesame, celiac. Not "doesn't love peanuts." A genuine anaphylactic allergy means the galley cannot use that ingredient at all, including in the crew mess. The chef needs to know whether a separate prep zone is required and whether the guest carries an EpiPen. If the guest carries one, the chef tells the chief stew, who tells the bridge. The bridge logs it in the medical log against MCA reporting requirements.
Line 3: Soft dietary patterns. Pescatarian. Vegan two days a week. Low-carb until dinner. Gluten-avoiding but not celiac. The chef can absorb three or four of these on one week. More than four means the menu becomes a translation exercise.
Line 4: Religious or cultural requirements. Halal, kosher, no pork, Lenten observance for one guest. Halal and kosher have specific sourcing requirements that the chef cannot resolve in a Mediterranean port at 09:00 on a Sunday. These require 10 days of lead time. State them.
Line 5: Strong dislikes. Things to never serve. One guest hates cilantro. One guest will not eat octopus. The chef can usually run a parallel plate if there is one or two of these per guest. Listing 20 dislikes per guest makes the brief unusable.
Line 6: Strong loves. Things to serve at least twice. A guest who loves dover sole gets it midweek. A guest who loves a specific Provence rosé named in the brief gets it on day 1 if it can be sourced. The chef wants to win the week. Tell them how.
Line 7: Breakfast pattern. Continental, full English, fruit-only, hot only on request. The chef plans for breakfast first because it is the only meal where guests show up at unpredictable times across three hours. Knowing whether to set up a buffet or take orders changes the morning staffing.
Line 8: Lunch pattern. On the yacht or ashore. If ashore, how many lunches and roughly which ports. If on the yacht, light or substantial. Lunch on the swim platform after a beach-club morning is light. Lunch at anchor for 12 hungry people after a swim is substantial. They are different menus.
Line 9: Dinner pattern. Formal, casual, or mixed. How many courses. How long do guests like to sit at table. A 12-guest, 4-course dinner with wine pairing takes 2.5 hours. A casual family-style dinner takes 75 minutes. The chef plans the service rhythm and instructs the chief stew accordingly.
Line 10: Children. Ages, eating habits, separate meal times, separate menus. Children under six are usually served at 17:30 and put down before the adult dinner. The chef cooks two separate menus. State the ages and the timing the family wants. Do not assume the chef will guess.
Line 11: Special occasions. Birthdays, anniversaries, proposals, milestone dinners. Date and what the host wants. A surprise 50th-birthday dinner on day 4 needs a cake order placed before departure. A proposal dinner needs the chef and chief stew briefed by the planner, not by the surprise-ee. Tell the chef in writing 10 days out.
Line 12: Wine and spirits preferences. The chef does not buy the wine, the chief stew does. But the chef cooks to the wine in some courses. If the host has a Burgundy preference, the chef adjusts the protein for the third course. Send the wine list and the dinner pattern in the same brief.
That is the document. Two pages. The chef builds the week from it.
What needs work
The MYBA preference sheet stays in circulation because it is the broker's record. We do not push back on the broker filling it in. We do push back when the broker forwards only the MYBA sheet to the chef and considers the brief complete. The chef on a 50m+ yacht is paid €70K to €120K a year and has been cooking 60-hour weeks for a decade. The chef knows what they are doing. The constraint is information, not skill. The brief above gives them the information in the order they cook.
We have also seen brokers redact guest names from the brief before sending it to the chef, on privacy grounds. The chef cannot plan a seat plan without names. If the host is genuinely concerned, the broker can mark the brief "Confidential, do not retain after charter," and the chef will not retain it. The redaction-by-default habit is not a privacy practice, it is a defensive practice, and it costs the host two days of menu accuracy.
The 10-day calendar
The brief lands with the chef 14 days before embarkation. We will use a 14-day calendar to show what happens after.
Day 14 to 12. Chef reads the brief, drafts a 7-day menu, sends it to the captain for the host's review. The host has 48 hours to flag anything they do not like.
Day 12 to 10. Chef places long-lead orders. Aged beef. Specific cheeses. Specialty fish if the destination cannot guarantee day-of supply. Halal or kosher items if relevant. Wine and spirits if not already aboard.
Day 10 to 7. Chef confirms supplier delivery slots. Most ports in the Med use the same three or four wholesale suppliers, who deliver on a fixed weekly schedule. Saint-Tropez Saturday morning, Antibes Friday afternoon, Bonifacio Tuesday and Friday. Missing the window costs a day.
Day 7 to 3. Chef loads non-perishables. Walk-in is partially loaded with what does not depend on guest arrival logistics. Most freezers are 80% full by day 5.
Day 3 to 0. Chef and chief stew finalise the breakfast and dinner cards for day 1 and day 2. Last fresh-produce order goes in 36 hours before embarkation. The galley is stocked for the first 48 hours by the time the guests step aboard.
If the brief lands on day 5 instead of day 14, the chef compresses this calendar. Items that need 10 days of lead time become substitutes. The wine pairing is whatever was already aboard. The kosher items are dropped or sourced from a non-certified supplier. The first two days of the charter are a substitution exercise, not a planned menu.
What goes wrong when the brief is late
We have logged the standard failure modes over five seasons of charter feedback. Late briefs produce four predictable outcomes.
First, the chef serves what was already aboard for the first 48 hours. This is fine on a 60m with a deep galley, less fine on a 38m where the previous charter's leftovers are the starting point.
Second, soft dietary patterns get missed. A pescatarian guest is served chicken on day 2 because the brief arrived three days late and the chef had already ordered protein. The chef apologises, the guest forgives, the moment is broken.
Third, the special-occasion dinner is rushed. A birthday cake that should have been a three-tier custom order becomes whatever the supplier in Bonifacio can deliver on 24 hours' notice.
Fourth, the host's preferred wines are not aboard. Wine sourcing is the chief stew's job, but the chief stew works from the same brief. A late brief means the chief stew is buying from the local cave at retail, not from the supplier at trade.
None of these are catastrophic on a $300K week. They are noticeable on a $500K week. They are unacceptable on a $1M week.
Sample brief, redacted
The format we send our own clients looks like this. The names below are placeholders.
PRE-CHARTER CHEF BRIEF
M/Y [YACHT NAME] | Charter dates: 11 to 18 July 2026 | 12 guests
1. Seat plan: G1 (host, M, 58), G2 (partner, F, 55), G3 (son, M, 22), G4 (son's GF, F, 23),
G5 (daughter, F, 26), G6 (daughter's partner, M, 28), G7 (host's brother, M, 54),
G8 (brother's wife, F, 52), G9-12 (couples, all 50s).
Dinner table: G1 head, G2 opposite, alternating M-F.
2. Hard allergies: G4 severe peanut, carries EpiPen. G7 celiac, not gluten-sensitive,
coeliac. Separate prep board required.
3. Soft patterns: G5 and G6 pescatarian. G2 low-carb until dinner. G3 high-protein,
keto-leaning, fine with the rest.
4. Religion/culture: None.
5. Strong dislikes: G1 no cilantro. G8 no octopus or squid. G3 no mushrooms.
6. Strong loves: G1 dover sole at least twice. G2 a Provence rosé she likes
(Château Léoube Rosé de Léoube, 2023 vintage if available). G7 dark chocolate
end-of-meal.
7. Breakfast: continental buffet 07:30-10:30, hot on request. G3 wants eggs daily.
8. Lunch: 4 lunches on the yacht, 3 lunches ashore (TBC ports). On-boat lunches light,
one will be Med-mezze, one will be a sushi setup if the chef wants to.
9. Dinner: 5 formal, 2 casual. Formal 4 courses with wine pairing, 20:30 start.
Casual 21:00, family-style.
10. Children: none under 18. No separate menu needed.
11. Special occasions: G1's 58th birthday on day 4 (14 July). Surprise. Cake to be
a single-tier chocolate, no candles, no song. Speech by G7 after dessert.
12. Wine: list to follow from chief stew. Provence rosé as Line 6.
Burgundy and Bordeaux preferred at dinner. No champagne with dinner.
Champagne pre-dinner and on day 4.
Sent: 26 June 2026 | Received: 26 June 2026 | Confirmed by chef: 27 June 2026
Send something like this 14 days before embarkation. The chef will read it once, send three or four follow-up questions, and start ordering by day 10. The week starts on Saturday with the kind of meal that takes 14 days to prepare for, not the kind that takes 14 hours.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should we send the chef brief? Three weeks before embarkation. Two weeks is the floor. Anything inside ten days risks the chef ordering substitutes for items the supplier needs to fly in.
Do yacht chefs really cook off-menu requests? Yes, within reason. Chefs on 50m+ yachts run a tailored menu by default. The constraint is not skill, it is whether the ingredients can be sourced in the cruising ground.
What is the standard format for the dietary brief? There is no standard. The MYBA preference sheet is a starting point and most brokers will send one, but the useful brief is shorter and more specific than the form they send.
Can the chef accommodate three or four different diets in one party? Three is normal. Four raises prep load by about 60% and the chef will need an extra hand from the chief stew. Five different diets across 12 guests is the point at which we tell the host to expect the menu to feel like a hotel buffet, not a chef's menu.
Who pays for special-order ingredients? The host, through the APA. Specialty items, kosher certification, rare wines, custom cakes all flow through the APA at supplier cost. There is no markup on the yacht side. The chef will provide receipts on request.
What if the brief changes mid-charter? Tell the chief stew, not the chef directly. The chief stew tracks every change against the menu plan and brings the chef the consolidated update. This avoids the chef getting six contradictory inputs across the week.
Related reading
For the wider context, see our guide to the charter embarkation day protocol and the chief stew's actual role. If your party includes severe allergies, our allergy-specific charter protocol covers the medical-side coordination. For multi-faith parties, see kosher, halal, and vegan crew briefs. For chef selection on individual yachts, the yacht chef quality signals post covers how to read a chef's CV before booking.
If the brief above flagged something you want to discuss before chartering, the charter pillar lists yachts whose chefs we have personally vetted. For the financial mechanics of how APA covers the specialty items above, see the APA breakdown. When the chef wants to send a guest ashore for dinner, our network covers the restaurants worth the tender ride.