--- title: "“Living Someone Else’s Life”: Chef Andriy Matsiuta on Three Years in a Dubai Millionaire’s Family, the Price of Michelin, and Why Ukrainian Cuisine Needs to Stop Imitating" description: "Chef Andriy Matsiuta told Wave RBC.UA in an interview about three years working as a private chef in the family of a Ukrainian millionaire in Dubai, the scam he encountered while trying to move to London, and why Ukrainian gastronomy needs to stop imitating global models and build its own identity." date: 2026-09-03T15:02:01.000Z lang: en url: https://xab.info/en/posts/chef-andriy-matsiuta-from-dubai-to-michelin-ukrainian-gastronomy tags: [] publisher: "XAB.info" --- # “Living Someone Else’s Life”: Chef Andriy Matsiuta on Three Years in a Dubai Millionaire’s Family, the Price of Michelin, and Why Ukrainian Cuisine Needs to Stop Imitating ![Chef Andriy Matsiuta in an interview: about working in a Dubai millionaire's family, Michelin stars and the future of Ukrainian cuisine](https://xab.info/media/2026/09/03/shef-povar-andrey-macjuta-ot-dubaja-do-michelin-ukrainskaya-gastronomiya/shef-povar-andrey-macjuta-ot-dubaja-do-michelin-ukrainskaya-gastronomiya-1.webp) Chef Andriy Matsiuta told Wave RBC.UA in an interview about his journey from school-holiday construction sites to working as a private chef in the family of a Ukrainian millionaire in Dubai, and about internships at Michelin-starred restaurants. His story is not a linear “rise to the top,” but a series of coincidences, debts, and deliberate decisions that shaped his own view of fine dining. Matsiuta emphasizes that after returning to Ukraine he became convinced that local restaurants already have something to compete with the world’s best, but for a real breakthrough it is critically important to stop copying other people’s models and build their own gastronomic identity. ### From the construction site to the train station: how the journey began Matsiuta recalls that even in his school years every summer started with construction work. In grades 10–11 he helped his stepfather build a café — essentially a restaurant in a village 70 km from Kyiv. “I always wanted to be an architect,” he admits, adding that now, 16 years into his conscious life, he is actually studying architectural design. However, university was out of reach for him back then: at school he was a failing student, while his brother was an honor student, and the family’s priorities were clearly set. Matsiuta went to a vocational school, not wanting to become a plasterer or a stucco worker, and saw the cooking workshop as the only accessible alternative. His first job was a place at the train station serving hot sandwiches. “Back then I thought I was the best chef in the world. But I realized this wasn’t my thing,” he recalls. Across the street they sold a newspaper; he bought it, found a better vacancy — and began a more deliberate path in gastronomy. ### Dubai: three years in a millionaire’s family An attempt to get a job in London turned into a scam: Matsiuta paid intermediaries for “invitations to England,” they disappeared, and the interest on the debt grew quickly. In the end, just before New Year’s, he flew to the UAE and started working as a private chef in the family of a Ukrainian millionaire. “It was a great experience, because you handle the entire food situation. Wherever the bosses are — everything connected with food, the dishes it is served on, the delivery of groceries into the house — you fully take on and run a little restaurant at home,” he describes. Three years of cooking for the same people, knowing their habits, diets, and moods, created an almost family-like connection. But, according to Matsiuta, the key professionalism here is “to keep your distance and remember who you are there.” ### The price of comfort and professional growth Working in the family provided a super-stable income, a good salary, extra bonuses, insurance, and healthcare. “But you get used to these perks very quickly. And at some point it stops letting you grow. When you’re a young person, you need to socialize, you need interaction. After all, you’re in the house 24/7 and you’re not living your own life, but the life of the person you work for,” the chef sums up. It was precisely this realization that pushed him toward further education and gastronomic travels, during which he spent thousands of dollars to see from the inside how world-class establishments operate. ### Ukrainian gastronomy: the time for its own identity In the interview, Matsiuta explains what guests actually pay for at Michelin-starred restaurants and where he would take a foreign colleague in Ukraine. His key thesis: Ukrainian establishments already have something to compete with the best in the world, but for international recognition it is necessary to stop looking over one’s shoulder at others and form their own identity. “It is important for us not to imitate, but to speak in our own language,” his position boils down to. The full video of the conversation is available on Wave’s YouTube channel. ### Contradictory data In the Wave RBC.UA publication, Matsiuta’s story is framed under the narrative headline “from the train station to Michelin,” which creates the impression of a strict linear career ladder. The chef himself gently corrects this frame at the start of the interview: “Not exactly, but that happened too. Probably that was cut out as a title for the publication — ‘from the train station to Michelin.’” He emphasizes that the path was non-linear: between the train-station sandwiches and the job in the millionaire’s family stood the failed London episode with debts, and the Michelin experience is the result of deliberate internships and gastronomic travels, not a natural continuation of his career. Thus, the editorial slogan and the subject’s own interpretation diverge on the degree of “linearity” of his biography. ## 🔍 Fact-Check Verification - [“Living Someone Else’s Life.” Chef Andriy Matsiuta on Working for a Millionaire, Michelin, and Ukrainian Cuisine](https://wave.rbc.ua/ukr/insider/zhivesh-svoe-zhittya-shef-kuhar-andriy-matsyuta-1788420301.html) - Подтверждено по источнику wave.rbc.ua