Bloomberg

KZ Provisioning

Chef Gavin Kaysen and Minnesota Timberwolves Center Rudy Gobert

Two Star Chefs Are Secretly Feeding Your Favorite NBA and WNBA Players

For eight years a pair of star chefs have been quietly feeding the best known pro teams in Minnesota, including the NBA Timberwolves, the WNBA Lynx and the NHL Wild. Chefs Gavin Kaysen, whose Minneapolis-based empire includes the James Beard-winning Spoon and Stable, and Andrew Zimmern, famed for outsize TV shows such as Bizarre Foods and Wild Game Kitchen, and their company KZ Provisioning are teaming up with the behemoth food service operation Aramark.

They’ll be extending their range of services beyond Minnesota to teams, both professional and collegiate nationwide, feeding players and their extended friends and families, which is sometimes as many as 120 people. The service is, the chefs say, a big value add for teams; even more important, it can maximize players’ performances.

“A lot of people started paying attention with Tom Brady and his personal chef. [Brady] credits him and the longevity of his career and his success with what he puts into his body,” Zimmern says.

“These athletes are in tune to what they want to do to their body, with recovery through food,” Kaysen says. “There’s so many shows now—on Amazon, on Apple, following players and teams, Quarterback on Netflix—shows that make everyone more aware of how much athletes take care of themselves now.”