Chef Marcos Spaziani from Below Deck Deck Sailing Yacht season 3 is getting rave reviews from fans. Whether it be his delectable food, superior cooking skills or his cool, calm demeanor, viewers love him.
Chef Marcos is so good fans believe he may top the field as the best Below Deck chef of all-time. Although he’s got a long way to go in order to top Chef Ben Robinson or Chef Rachel Hargrove.
With his popularity soaring, fans want to know all about him. Here’s everything you need to know about Chef Marcos Spaziani.
Chef Marcos’ Food Truck, Restaurants & Business Partner
Venezuelan-Italian five-star celeb chef Marcos Spaziani is building his restaurant empire. Before starring on Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 3 Chef Marcos was already making his mark.
Spaziani has been in the food industry for over 10 years. A few years back, the BDSY star moved from Miami, Florida, to Los Angeles, California. (Before that, he fled Caracas, Venezuela, because he feared for his life after quitting working for the former president.)
Once in LA he met his business partner, Californian Chef Louis Huh (Korean background) while working at top restaurant, Taste. Both chefs lost their job due to the Covid-19 pandemic but decided to not let that keep them down. The two started a food truck, called ML Eats, feeding customers gourmet food at affordable prices. Business boomed. They’ve now expanded the business to include catering, restaurant consulting, and private chef events.
“Why I work with Marcos is because his food knowledge is universal. He’s cooked every different cuisine,” Chef Louis said of his friend and business partner Spaziani. So far on Below Deck Sailing Yacht season 3 Chef Marcos has shown he’s a virtuoso cook, especially dealing with Erica Rose and her husband Charles.
Two highly ambitious and talented entrepreneurs, Chef Marcos and Chef Louis weren’t done there. They just recently opened LA restaurant Marlou, which serves brunch and dinner. Below Deck Sailing Yacht co-stars Ashley Marti and Kelsie Goglia ate at Marlou and showed off some tantalizingly tasty dishes on Instagram. Fans can also check out more of their delicious dishes on Restaurant Marlou’s Instagram and ML Eats’ Instagram.
But Marlou isn’t the only restaurant Chef Marcos and Chef Louis are opening. They are opening a Korean restaurant in LA’s Koreatown later this year called Under One Roof.
At the end of March, BDSY co-star Daisy Kelliher announced on Instagram she would be bartending at Marlou on April 14, 15, and 16, or the Thursday, Friday and Saturday that week from 6 p.m. until 12 a.m.
Chef Marcos’ Age, Birthday, Tattoos, Hobbies & Relationship Status
Chef Marcos Spaziani turned 43 years-old in 2022, but was age 42 when working and filming the BDSY season 3 on sailing yacht Parsifal III. Spaziani’s birthday is on January 13, 1979.
On Chef Marcos’ Instagram and Facebook, it’s pretty clear he’s single, unless he has a secret relationship. However, co-star Gary King recently publicly said Marcos had a girlfriend on the show. Fans have also noticed on the show he is close with Kelsie and suspect they had a thing.
In an early episode of BDSY season 3, Marcos revealed that he’s been a player in the past. He told a story about how he was on a yacht where the rest of the crew was all-female. He claims to have slept with all the other crew members. Apparently it got hairy near the end of the season when all the ladies found out he was hooking up with all of them. First Officer Gary King has some competition as Below Deck‘s top ladies’ man.
Other than showing off his crafty cuisine creations, Chef Marcos also posts himself surfing, traveling, cooking, skateboarding, wakeboarding, boxing, working out, and hanging with friends and family.
He’s also shared new tattoos. Marcos tattoos include two star forearm tattoos, a sailor tattoo, a tribal tattoo that covers part of his chest, shoulder and back, and a chef knife tattoo near his wrist along with some written words in cursive. Just recently he got a new tattoo right above his wrist of his ML Eats business logo. He also has two leg tattoos, one on each leg, including a skull one.
The Food At Chef Marcos New Restaurant Marlou
The Marlou brunch menu offers traditional breakfast items like French toast, classic benedict and avocado toast. However, it also offers breakfast borracha burrito, steak tostado and the ML Breakfast Plate (house made ricotta, roasted cherry tomato, wild arugula, scrambled egg, avocado, artisan toast). A couple other irresistible mouthwatering offerings: “spicy pork bulgogi sandwich (pork belly, mozzarella cheese, cilantro, onions, spicy sauce” and “tacos a la borracha (braised brisket, pico de gallo, chipotle aioli, aji verde, queso fresco)”. And that’s only the brunch!
Chef Marcos’ restaurant Marlou’s dinner menu is even more impressive. Appetizers include octopus, crispy quinoa (“pickled onions, roasted baby beets, goat cheese mousse, orange segments, cucumbers, pistachio dust”), shishito peppers, and smoked beef carpaccio.
Some of Marlou’s main courses that stood out: spicy seafood soup (“manila clams, mussels, calamari, shrimp, spicy marinara, squid ink linguine”), kimchi paella (“mussels, clams, calamari, shrimp, pork belly, kimchi, gochukaru, saffron kimchi rice”), and porcine e truffle spaghetti (“crispy zucchini, porcini mushroom, garlic white wine sauce”). Chef Marcos and Chef Louis have infused the cuisine of their Korean, Venezuelan and Italian backgrounds in their dishes.
Finally, Marlou also has some outstanding dessert offerings, too, for those not too full. Marlou’s sweets include: chocolate cake, tarte tatin, torched Alaska (“strawberry & matcha gelato, yuzu citrus compote, sponge cake, italian meringue torch, citrus smoke”), and chocolate brioche bread pudding.
BDSY Season 3 Chef Marcos Has Cooked For Celebrity Clients, Including Shakira
A new chef on Below Deck has to prove their worth to fans, crew and charter guests. You’re only as good as your last dish. Chef Marcos wasn’t worried, though, because he explained to the cameras he’s already served some of the most famous celebrities in the world.
“I cook for Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, [David] Beckham, I know what I’m doing.”
Although he’s confident, he doesn’t have arrogance like disliked Below Deck Down Under Chef Ryan McKeown.
He also cooked for former US President Bill Clinton.
Chef Marcos Fled Venezuela & Job As Chef To President Fearing Safety
Marcos hasn’t visited his home country of Venezuela for over 20 years. He has refugee status after he fled the the capital city of Caracas seeking political asylum in the United States.
“Back in Venezuela I used to cook for the president. He was a dictator. Whoever was working with him and quit, you become a target. I was scared. I left because I realized I was going to die at one point,” Spaziani explained in the second episode of BDSY season 3.
The Venezuelan president Chef Marcos likely served food to was likely deceased dictator and President Hugo Chávez, going by Spaziani’s timeline of when he fled.
“Some of them didn’t make it [fleeing Venezuela] … because they got killed,” he told Chief Engineer Colin MacRae.
Marcos then teared up on camera, saying he misses his mom and loved ones back home he can’t go and see.
