There are few things more important to an NBA player’s performance than his diet. Food is fuel, especially so for the greatest athletes in the world.
But for celebrity chef Christian Bowman, who has worked with some of the league’s biggest stars, including Jimmy Butler, Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, Jayson Tatum and James Harden, cooking is more art than science. Creativity makes the process more fun.
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“I’m not the ordinary chef,” Bowman told The Athletic on the latest episode of Stargazing. “I wear my chef coat but sometimes I’m gonna have on some swaggy kicks. I’m also going to bring my business savvy and my mentality and my work ethic. And the food is gonna be off the chain.”
In Episode 6 of Stargazing, The Athletic’s NBA Culture video podcast, Bowman spoke about the process of cooking for NBA players and celebrities, living with Butler in Minneapolis and Philadelphia, the importance of Instagram in finding new clients, his favorite dishes to cook and epic cheat meals, among other topics.
Here is a snippet of our conversation.
Editor’s note: Questions and answers have been edited for clarity.
ASAP Rocky was your first big break. How did you link with him?
Man, it’s crazy. So my pops stays in Atlanta. I went to school out there my sixth-grade year. I went to high school out there in my ninth- and 10th-grade years. A lot of people don’t know this person, but you know Playboi Carti? I grew up with him. I’ve been knowing him since he was like eight years old. I had left. I knew his older brother, and then I had another friend that grew up in Atlanta, we all stayed in the same cul-de-sac, and we would play basketball together. Around this time, he was like a real little kid. So I remember he was always talented, always wanted to do music. I had lost contact with them, like, a few years ago.
And somehow I connected with one of my boys and they was like, ‘You know, Jordan just signed with ASAP.’ And he was like, ‘I want to connect you with him.’ So I had a talk with him. We got on the phone. We got on a FaceTime call. He was like, ‘Yo, bro, I’ll be in LA. I hear you cooking, you’re doing your thing. I want to help you out with ASAP.’ That’s how I end up getting that. And he was the first celebrity that I ever cooked for. And it went well, man, and he loved the food. They all loved it. And I feel like that was what kind of took me up a level — when I started cooking for him.
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Then from there, it’s like a domino effect, right? You start getting referrals, different clients. I think Kyrie was your first NBA client, right?
I took the picture with ASAP. He was really cool. I ended up putting it up on Instagram. That went viral. That was my first 1,000-like picture on Instagram. So that was big around that time. So then after that, it’s crazy, this lady hit me up, introduced herself to me. She was trying to do a show, and it was a show about chefs. It never really got picked up or anything. But I met these other chefs. And there was this girl named Alex who’s a dope chef from LA, man. It’s crazy how God works. She ends up hitting me, like, ‘Yo, I referred you to this lady. I don’t know who she works for or who she cooks for works, but I gave her your Instagram.’ I was like waiting for the lady. And this was at the time when I guess DMs didn’t really have the filter where your DMs go.
So I looked and I had the DM. She was like, ‘Hey, my name is So-and-so So-and-so, I work for Kyrie Irving.’ I’m like, ‘Whoa, this is big.’ So she was like, ‘Yeah, I want to know how much you charge. I want to know what’s your availability.’ And then from there, I let her know everything and it all worked out. And it’s crazy how one of my friends, actually my good friend, knew Kyrie at the time, too. So I ended up letting him know like, ‘Look, this lady hit me up. She’s working for Kyrie.’ He was like, ‘Man, that’s crazy. I gotta talk to him right now.’ So I feel like that also kind of helped me get that job as well.
You’ve characterized your relationship with Jimmy Butler as being brothers. How close did you guys get?
Definitely got close working with him. As a private chef, you’re in these different homes and they really have to put trust in you because it’s a very intimate job. You’re hearing different conversations. You’re seeing different things. Athletes, they’re regular people. They go through things just like we go through things. So you get to see all of that. So we definitely grew over time. We took trips together. We’ve talked about a lot of different things when it came to just life, family.
And as you’re working with somebody, you kind of grow that bond. You get closer to them. Like, I’m working with you every day. I’m probably the first one that you see when you wake up because I’m cooking breakfast. So whether you’re sad, whether you’re happy, whether you’re glad, I’m the first person you talk to.
Photo: Christian BowmanYou’re almost like a therapist.
Exactly. For real. So you definitely build that bond. It’s more than just cooking. Like you’re dealing with a lot of other different aspects of this job in this career.
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What’s a typical day like from start to finish?
A typical day, depending on the menu, when it comes to cooking, I’m very creative. So I like to create my menu the day before, or a few days prior, depending on how much time I have. And once I create that menu, let’s say I have a client, athletes, they’re getting up early in the morning because they either have a workout or it’s game day or whatever the case may be. So I’m waking up at four or five in the morning, depending on if I have to drive. I may have to drive 30, 45 minutes away to get to their house, depending where they stay. If I don’t go grocery shopping the day before, I may have to do it in the morning. So I have to get up even earlier. So after I do all that, get to their house by a certain time, wait, cook them breakfast. And after that, they eat breakfast. I clean up everything and make sure the kitchen is spotless. Everything is taken care of. Everything is put back neatly the way it was.
And if I’m doing breakfast, lunch and dinner, depending how close the client is, like most of my clients, they’re usually like, ‘Bro, if you want to stay here and chill until it’s time to cook lunch, you can do that. Or if you want to leave and you gotta do something else, you can do that as well.’ So if it’s something like that, where I’m cooking, breakfast, lunch and dinner, I might stay at the crib and just chill, relax, start prepping for lunch at a certain time. Then get lunch ready. And then from there, do it all over again. Clean the kitchen again. Make sure it’s spotless. And then just chill until it’s time to cook dinner. Now, cooking dinner, prep the food, cook the food, set it out, make sure everything’s laid out nice and neatly. And once everybody’s done, cleaning the dishes again and it’s time to get out of there. Go home, get some rest and do it all over again.
How did the pandemic affect your job? Because there were a lot of these situations where you kind of have to be in-person to cook for them. So how did things change?
The crazy thing is it actually helped me in ways. In my line of work, everybody has to eat. At that time, restaurants were closed. You couldn’t really do much. The best thing to do is hire a private chef. And at that time, I was actually working like crazy.
That also gave me time to figure out different avenues. I was never getting on (IG) Live. I was never know doing classes and stuff like that. That stuff made you kind of work harder and figure out different things with yourself and with your career. But I stayed busy. That was one time, like, I was working like crazy during the pandemic. And I’m thankful for that. Because I know a lot of people didn’t really have that opportunity that I had. But I’m definitely thankful. And it kind of helped me a lot.
How important is social media, and Instagram, in particular, for a chef in 2022?
Instagram is very important. That’s the biggest thing right now. It’s a marketing tool, it could be your best friend. I feel like that’s where I have most of my clients at. Just posting. I remember I told myself, like, ‘I just want to keep posting great food. Keep putting hashtags.’ And that worked.
I’ve had clients hit me up. I just be like, ‘Yo, bro, I just wanna know how did you find me?’ If it wasn’t word of mouth, it was, ‘I looked up the hashtag that had #lachef and I’ve seen your pictures and it looked amazing. So I want to reach out to you.’ So Instagram is definitely big. It’s a tool. Now they have Reels, where people are growing with these reels. Being able to post your food and be able to showcase, that is the way right now for chefs.
So it sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of your business from Instagram.
Definitely. A lot of my business came from Instagram. Word of mouth and Instagram, definitely.
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(Photo: Christian Bowman)
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