From £3.30 Pot Washer to Six-Figure Celebrity Chef

A restaurant pot washer who listened to 50 Cent and Ed Sheeran to while-away the “long and tedious” hours at the kitchen sink has become a celebrity chef to a slew of other A-list stars including…50 Cent and Ed Sheeran.

Stacey Leith, pictured above, relied on pop music to “stay sane” during tedious 10-hour shifts on the minimum wage.

As a teenager, she relied on albums by Sheeran, 50 Cent and other artists to get through her seven-day working week.

But Stacey got her life-changing break in 2019 when she landed a job as the nutrition chef for the Liverpool Football Club team, cooking for first-team players such as Virgil van Dijk and Mohammed Salah.

She has since worked with 50 Cent twice, Eric Clapton, N-Dubz, and The 1975, and a string of other celebrities, as a tour chef.

And against the odds, Stacey has just returned home after accompanying Ed Sheeran on his European Mathematics Tour.

She travelled with his entourage, stayed in the same plush hotels, and catered for the tour crew before and after each concert.

The six-week tour began in Gdańsk, Poland, on 12th July and ended last month in Bucharest, Romania.

Stacey, 34, who lives in Liverpool, has gone from earning just £3.30 per hour to a six-figure salary.

Speaking yesterday, she said working for the Shape of You star was a “genuine dream come true”.

She said: “It was my first tour with Ed Sheeran and it was a genuine dream come true.

“Everyone on the tour was lovely, like a family, and while I was often rushed off my feet, there was nowhere I’d rather be.

“Leaving school, I knew that I wanted to make cookery my career but I never imagined I’d end up going from pot washer to celebrity chef, working with music icons and some of my favourite artists, such as Ed Sheeran.

“The weather was beautiful across the tour and I got to do some sightseeing in each country as well as getting to see Ed perform on stage, which was amazing. He’s a genuine talent.”

Stacey’s other clients have included Eric Clapton and the comedian Peter Kay.

Kay’s favourite dishes are said to include cottage pie and other “British classics”, while Clapton – with whom she has toured twice – is a fan of cookies.

50 Cent, meanwhile, is said to like well-done steak.

Stacey will be rejoining Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour again next summer and will be working with Grammy award-winning pop star Dua Lipa in London next month.

Stacey, who lives with partner Gerrard, 37, has now penned a series of children’s cookery books in the hope of inspiring other youngsters to “think big”.

She hopes her Pasta Sam series, which focus on making simple dishes, will encourage kids with a passion for cooking to follow their dreams.

“Cookery isn’t only a life-long skill that every child can and should learn but it is a profession that can open so many doors,” she said.

“I’m always looking for new ways to be creative with my career as a chef and the idea for a children’s cookbook series had been something I’d wanted to pursue for a while.

“It follows a young boy, Pasta Sam, on his journey of learning to cook, with his mum teaching him, and readers, fun, tasty recipes for dishes such as brownies, tortilla pizza, and chicken noodle soup.

“I hope the Pasta Sam books inspire kids to fall in love with cooking and to encourage them from an early age to start thinking big.”

ENDS