Jonny gives City stars added bite

CHEF COOKS UP HEALTHY, TASTY MEALS FOR FOOTBALLERS

EVER wondered what Premier League footballers eat when they’re at home?

Jonny Marsh can help answer that one. Jonny is a Michelin-star trained chef who cooks for some of City’s top players – in their own kitchens.

The 26-year-old counts Kyle Walker, Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan as his clients and turns up at their homes to make them dinner. Working closely with City’s nutritionists, Jonny tailors the meals to each player, hoping to improve their performance on the pitch and recovery when they’re at home. He said: “They want things like shepherd’s pie. They’re really down to earth.”

Walker loves homely food, De Bruyne is into spices and ‘Ilkay loves an obscene amount of garlic’ he joked. “I try to think a bit outside the box, but make it so it’s still homely.”

This isn’t your usual, fatty shepherd’s pie. Jonny uses carrot or swede mash and turkey mince to ‘keep it super clean and lean’. He whips up everything from healthy katsu curries to barbecue pulled chicken tacos and one-pot wonders.

Creating daily individual menus, Jonny drops off food twice a week to De Bruyne and his family, and cooks in Gundogan and Walker’s kitchens almost every night.

Despite working in the stars’ palatial pads, Jonny says it couldn’t be more normal. He said: “I go over, Ilkay probably has his music blasting, chilling on his phone and asks me what he’s having for tea. I take that worry and hassle off them. Everything is done for them.”

Gundogan’s knee injury suffered against Watford last season means the midfielder is watching his weight. Jonny has been feeding him an abundance of ginger, garlic and turmeric, as they contain healing properties. The chef says he allows Gundogan a few carbs, like sweet potato, or broccoli with cous cous, to keep his weight in check.

Jonny, from Hale, says he can’t take all the credit, but De Bruyne is ‘arguably at the fittest he’s ever been’, and there’s been a big difference in the player’s body fat since the pair began working together 11 months ago.

Jonny began his career working for free at the now defunct Le Petit Blanc, when world famous Michelin-star chef Raymond Blanc walked in. After two days of observation, Blanc offered Jonny a prestigious apprenticeship at his two Michelin-starred restaurant, Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire. The budding chef was not only the youngest person to have ever done the apprenticeship, but the only person to have been offered it without applying. After leaving Le Manoir, Jonny set-up pop-up restaurants and began working with a photographer friend who had a blog. Jonny’s cooking content garnered almost 30,000 views on YouTube in just four days, catching the eye of Borra Garson – the woman who discovered Jamie Oliver – which led to a YouTube series. Despite this, Jonny couldn’t catch his break. “I kept being told you can do it but you’re too young. You don’t have that edge,” he said. Ready to give up, he began working on a millionaire’s luxury yacht, found his passion in private chefing and set up the business Aurora Food Ltd. “One day, I got a call from a player liaison officer at City who said Kevin de Bruyne wants his Christmas holidays doing,” said Jonny. The City midfielder then hired him full-time, with Walker and Gundogan signing up a few months later. Jonny Marsh