The longtime chef at New Jersey governor’s mansion in Princeton has been replaced by a Red Bank restaurant owner who is taking over a new position with a salary that is about $40,000 more than the former cook’s wages, NJ Advance Media has learned.

The state hired Cesare De Chillies, executive chef and owner at B2 Bistro + Bar, at $110,000 a year, according to records obtained through open records law.

That’s a bump from what the state was paying the former chef who the administration pushed out of the position in April after working at the governor’s mansion, known as Drumthwacket, for nearly 17 years, according to two people with knowledge of her departure who requested anonymity to speak about personnel matters.

The ousted chef had an annual salary just shy of about $70,000 for the last three months she worked there, according to the administration. Prior to that, she earned nearly $62,000, according to state records.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration said the recent hire is filling a newly created role at the mansion to help accommodate more public events, like holiday open houses and dinners with different constituencies.

“To accommodate this increase in programming, the job of executive chef was changed to executive chef and program coordinator, which requires a different skillset and expertise than the previous position. The job no longer consists of solely cooking, but has been expanded to include coordination and development of additional programming,” Murphy spokeswoman Alexandra Altman said in a statement.

“By expanding the scope, job description, and portfolio of the executive chef to include many more events and additional programming than previous administrations, the salary of the executive chef and programming director increased,” she said.

De Chillies’s restaurant is located less than a two-mile-drive from Murphy’s Middletown home. He’s not a personal friend of the governor or known to Murphy through his Red Bank restaurant, rather he was referred by a mutual contact in the catering community, according to Altman.

The governor is pictured with De Chillies In a social media post from August 2018, in which De Chillies said he cooked for Murphy for a dinner party.

De Chillies declined to comment when contacted by a reporter.

As executive chef and program coordinator, the new chef will develop menus and serve as the point of contact for event caterers at the mansion, according to his job description provided by the administration. He’ll also create programs “geared toward providing a memorable experience to more than 7,000 people who tour the home annually.”

The administration said the new workload is more than the former chef undertook.

He started working at Drumthwacket in October. In September, his then fiancée, now wife, Jessie Drescher, was hired by the administration to work as Drumthwacket’s residence director, according to the state. She earns $70,000. The full-time position manages staff and events at Drumthwacket.

That’s about $12,000 less than the person who had that role earned under former Gov. Chris Christie earned. But it’s about $27,000 less than the person she replaced who the Murphy administration hired for the job after the governor took office.

The administration said Drescher’s salary was intentionally “lowered to reflect the shift in responsibilities” of the executive chef and “keep taxpayer cost down.”

Both positions are funded by taxpayers.

The longtime former chef was offered a job at a state-operated health facility in Trenton with commensurate salary, according to an administration source familiar with the matter, who didn’t deny the chef was forced out. The woman declined the position.

The mansion is owned and managed by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.

There have been at least $862,000 in repairs and renovations to the home since Murphy took office. The governor and first lady have said they plan to move into the mansion, but that won’t happen until the summer of 2021 at the earliest, according to an administration spokesman.

The vast majority of the big-ticket repairs are to be expected for a historic home with portions dating back to the 1830s, and focused on the public part of the mansion and not the private residence, including a new roof and electrical and plumbing updates.

Those bills are in addition to the $3.5 million the Drumthwacket Foundation hoped to raise in private donations for upgrades to the house, which included building a new kitchen in the public area of the mansion.

The foundation is a non-profit that helps maintain the residence. It would not say whether it met its fundraising goal.

Editor’s note: The original version of this story said that the former chef earned about $62,000. But administration officials said she actually made $70,000 in the last three months on the job.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.

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