Celeb chefs dish on the stars

Arnold Schwarzenegger likes “the most boring food on the planet.” (Boiled chicken, anyone?) “Health-conscious” rocker Bruce Springsteen enjoys fresh veggies from his own working New Jersey farm. And actor John Travolta has been known to repeatedly send back a dish until “freaked out” staffers get it right. That’s the scoop from insiders on the private-chef circuit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to confidentiality agreements.

Living in a shadow world of the wealthy, private chefs have the often grueling job of catering to the culinary whims of powerful VIPs — 24/7, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“The richer they are, the more peculiar they become — because they can,” says Denise Vivaldo with a laugh. Vivaldo is a culinary consultant and cookbook author who has worked as both a private and personal chef to celebs such as Suzanne Somers, Sly Stallone and Merv Griffin.

According to Vivaldo, there are the anorexic starlets subsisting on “water and leaves,” the husbands resentful that their working wives don’t have time to cook dinner, and the nightmare kids who would rather be eating at the mall.

And oh, celebs will ask their chefs, do you mind doing a little vacuuming after the grocery shopping?

It’s enough to make “Private Chefs of Beverly Hills” — a new Food Network show that debuted this month and follows a group of chefs as they cater Botox parties, pampered-pooch play dates and “glamping” (glamorous camping) trips — look like a walk in the park.

Vivaldo recalls working for one of the world’s richest men, “a crazy man, and having billions of dollars didn’t help him.”

He’d request a Thanksgiving dinner on a Malibu beach — in the middle of July.

Of course, some celebrities are so demanding — hiring and firing staff as fast as they can get through the service entrance — that they’re the subject of much eye-rolling in the industry. “I think she’s happier now, but for years the running joke in Hollywood was, ‘Barbra Streisand is looking for a chef,’ ” says one insider. According to another source, the diva’s peculiarities extended to plastering the windows of her vacation home with black plastic bags for privacy.

But when it comes to bizarre requests, no one seems to top rock stars.

“What always gets me is the tofu burger with the bottle of scotch and a pack of Marlboros. Literally, that’s what we see with the rockers,” says John Reilly, who owns the Village Market & Bakery in Gardiner, NY. Over the years, Reilly has met and fed a slew of stars and dignitaries — from P. Diddy (a 40-pound fried fish) to Rudy Giuliani (shrimp scampi).

Perhaps the most outrageous rock-star request of all time: For their 1982 World Tour, Van Halen banned brown M&M’s and stocked up on Schlitz Malt Liquor beer and — presumably not for any peanut butter sandwiches — K-Y jelly.

And then there is Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. In 2007, the rock-star couple was ordered to pay their former personal chef Jane Martin 24,944 British pounds (or about $38,350 in today’s dollars) for firing her after she became pregnant. Martin, who was employed at the couple’s British country estate, Lake House, told an employment tribunal that she was once forced to travel about 90 miles to the couple’s London home while seven months pregnant just to prepare Styler’s soup and salad. (Styler later called the judgment a “a horrible shock” and an “extraordinary travesty.”)

That wasn’t the only time the Police frontman garnered headlines for his poor table manners: He reportedly once insisted that another chef in his employment prepare his meal at a fancy Miami Beach restaurant.

“You hear stories — ‘I want this particular ice cream [so] send the pilot to go get it,’ ” says Mark Tafoya, who briefly worked as a private chef for a New York-based billionaire with a jet and his own island in the Caribbean.

It’s not uncommon for a private chef to get a last-minute order to cook a luncheon for 60 people or to produce a favorite dish on a yacht in an exotic locale. (“I brought a lot of bagels,” recalls Tafoya of his frequent trips to the Caribbean.)

Of course, if the price is right, some say no request is too extravagant.

“I always say I don’t work with celebrities because they’re interesting and brilliant. I work with them because they have money,” says Vivaldo, who wrote the primer, “How To Start a Home-Based Personal Chef Business.”

And then there is the intimacy that comes with cooking another person’s meals three times a day, seven days a week (with the occasional day off).

“I haven’t had anyone walk in naked on me, thank God,” jokes Debbie Spangler, a personal chef for musician Peter Frampton (a strict vegetarian) and several members of the Cincinnati Bengals. (“I’ve never seen a group of men eat so much in my life!” An average meal consists of a pound of protein per player — from stuffed pork tenderloin to bacon-wrapped turkey medallions — plus trimmings.)

Unfortunately, Vivaldo wasn’t spared the following burst of oversharing: A client once asked her to brew up a pot of joe — because they wanted to make a coffee enema.

“I said, Is that regular or decaf?” she recalls. “I was astounded.”

All of this explains why so many in the business ultimately choose to forgo a full-time job as a private chef to an eccentric celeb or blue blood, opting instead for the role of “personal chef,” which involves working for multiple clients, often at different income brackets.

“We’re not just for the uber-rich [who want] caviar spoon-fed to them on their private yacht,” explains Tafoya, who runs his own personal chef business, the Manhattan-based Remarkable Palate. He says he’s seen an “enormous upswing” in demand for his services in the past decade — especially among single workaholics and double-income professional types busy starting families.

While private chefs can earn as much as $100,000 a year, personal chefs usually charge by the hour or flat fee (about $50 to $75 an hour, plus groceries). Some whip up a whole week’s worth of meals — neatly labeled and ready to reheat — as part of a day’s work. Others prepare swoon-worthy engagement and anniversary dinners, or meals are sometimes “given” as wedding gifts. (A dinner for two typically costs somewhere between $300 and $500.)

But even ordinary New Yorkers can act like high-maintenance celebs when it comes to their food. No matter what or where he cooks in the city, Tafoya says one thing remains constant: “The size of the kitchen and the niceness of the appliances is inversely proportional to how much they’re used.”

carla.spartos@nypost.com

The top five outrageous celebrity food requests

1. Jay-Z loves chicken wings so much he reportedly hired a “chicken wing chef” to feed him and his entourage.

2. Dieting designer Karl Lagerfeld employs a personal chef to whip up Slimfast-style protein shakes — and a “Diet Coke butler” to deliver him his favorite fizzy drink on photo shoots.

3. Madonna has a chef to make her twig tea and to help her follow a strict macrobiotic diet consisting of at least 50 percent whole grains.

4. For breakfast every morning, Michael Jackson required fruit juice, granola, almond milk — and a tank of oxygen.

5. Strict vegetarian Paul McCartney has been known to travel with his private chef — who then instructs hotel staff on how to prepare his meals.