Meet Chef Johnnie | Handal | Celebrity Personal Chef | High End Caterer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chef Johnnie | Handal and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chef Johnnie |, what habits do you feel play an important role in your life?
The habit that really helped me succeed is being a perfectionist and wanting to be the best chef I could be. Continuing to learn new techniques and staying on top of the trends in food is very important. Many chefs go to culinary school and think now I’m a chef and sit back and they are the same chef they were when leaving culinary school.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
It wasn’t easy to get into Private Cheffing in LA. To get a full time job you had to go through agencies since Instagram wasn’t around yet. Well…. When I first went to an agency I had no resume for cooking. But I had the skills and experience. I was 30 years old but I started cooking at 8 years old. So this 1 agency gave me no play since I never worked for anyone. So before I went to other agencies I BS’d a resume with family friends to vouche that I worked for them. The agency called all 3 of them and they all “vouched” for me. So the agency sent me out on interviews. At this time I was in Acting School and I was at Groundlings Improve School. So I realized in the interviews with clients and their Estate Managers I had to turn it on like the camera was running. Interviews aren’t about cooking. It was about like ability and finding commonality with them to get them to bond with me. This worked in my favor. I had my pick of Private Chef jobs. Every family I met with wanted to do a trial and after the trial the offers flooded in. But I had a plan from day 1. I was being picky and denying great jobs I heard that big dinner parties paid really well and full time jobs paid good but 1 dinner party could be a weeks pay. So I was searching for a job that either had flexibility in days or a job where I worked during the days and had nights off which is super rare in this field. Well… I did just that. I was a chef who was able to drop my pride on who I worked for. I jumped right into high end drug rehabs as an Executive chef in my first year of professionally cooking. It was perfect. I was off weekends, brought in my chef friends so I had flexibility and I was off every weeknight and was making 6 figures in my first year. I did this for 2 different companies over 7 years. This gave me 7 years to build up my dinner party business since I was off 7 nights a week so I was available to take any and every dinner party. I essentially had 2 incomes coming in at once. It got to a point where I no longer needed the day job as a Rehab Exec Chef because my dinner party business succeeded it. If I worked for a family fulltime this whole time they would have wanted dinners, weekends and holidays I would have never been able to build this dinner party business that I have now. I had this goal in mind from day 1. I wrote my blueprint and followed it.

3 years back I messaged 100 of LA’s top Event Planners. I knew this was what would take me to the next level on huge events… but I got 1 message back. But I didn’t stop and eventually was able to link up with some of the best in LA. I am grateful they took a chance with me and trust me with their clients and events.

My only Full time jobs I had as a Private Chef were with Jimmy Iovine and Kid Cudi. But my Personal Chef clientele list is bonkers. Robert Earl, Lucian Grainge, John Janick, Benny Blanco, Tyga, Jim Berkus, Timothee Chalamet, Ryan Gosling and the list goes on.
The one lesson I learned is that if you are going to go for this career… give it your fucking all. If you half ass it you will be a mediocre chef . If you dedicate your life to this.. amazing things can happen. I never dreamed of having a business like this. My friend Chef Derrick Fox from Master Chef once said, “their is only 1 chef he knows with a bigger book of business then me and that is Wolfgang Puck”.

When it comes to my brand… I always tell people if it is food related.. I am your guy. I have dozens of chefs on my team. I can handle multiple jobs in 1 day, I do Meal Drop Offs, Large High End Catering Events, Weddings, Intimate Dinner Parties up to 15 courses, Casual Dinner Parties and I have a Chef Placement Agency that places chefs part time, full time in households and to travel with Clients out of town or the country. Instagram has been a huge part of my brand as well. Watching my stories is like the food version of Sports Center. You get a behind the scenes look at some of the most elaborate dinner parties in LA. You get to see the food, how it is put together, amazing homes with incredible views and behind the scenes videos. Instagram has been my only marketing I do and it is free. My business is probably 50 % Instagram and 50% referrals.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If a friend comes from out of town… the first place I’m taking them is my pops Cannabis Shop ERBA… since we are in the Wild Wild West . Then we would go to Venice Beach and Abbot Kinney since it has some of the best people watching in the world… it is a shit show there! Then maybe a drive through Beverly Hills. Now that the touristy stuff is out of the way… let’s talk about food in LA. There are so many great eateries here… and with how much I work… I don’t get out as often as most. I tend to only go to restaurants once and order the whole menu since my list is so long of places I want to go. But if you are visiting me you are most likely eating at a new restaurant I haven’t been to. I rarely go to a restaurant twice no matter how great it is.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
When I met my wife I was 8 years out of culinary school but I never wanted to work as a chef… I didn’t know that you could cook in peoples houses for a living. All I knew at the time was restaurant chef work since that is what I grew up in with my families Italian Restaurants. It wasn’t until The Next Food Network Star on The Food Network came out and I first heard of a private chef and I was like…. “I can do that”. My wife pushed me to audition for The Next Food Network Star. This was before I started to actually work as a Private Chef. I almost got on I was top 32 in the auditions. I went through auditions for 6 weeks. After this my wife was like…”this is what you should be doing.” Well…that is exactly what I did. I didn’t want the life my parents had with me and my sister working in restaurants. You work long hours each day and up to 7 days a week. There is a lot of stress from restaurants overhead. Spending time with family is limited. I knew I wanted a different life if I was going to start a family. My wife is the one who motivated me…and she didn’t even have to say anything. I wanted to make it happen for us if we were going to get married and have kids.

Website: www.chefjohnniela.com

Instagram: www.Instagram.com/chefjohnnie

Image Credits
Drewmatic