Head Chef

Tailor Your Resume for this Job

Role Overview :
Leads the kitchen by planning, managing, and developing all culinary operations. Implements kitchen strategy, budgets, food costing, and ensures best-in-class food quality, safety, consistency, and service speed.

Key Duties and ResponsibilitiesStrategic Planning & Culinary Development

-Plans, develops, and implements menu changes, seasonal rotations, slice specials, LTOs

-Design recipes and SOPs with detailed yields, cook times, and plating guides.

-Conducts menu engineering: analyses popularity vs. profitability, plans price points, and repositions items to maximise GP.

-Leads tastings and R&D sessions; sets innovation targets and approves final recipes before onboarding the team.

-Owns kitchen P&L lines; sets monthly/weekly budgets

-Builds and maintains recipe costings at PLU level

-Plans and manages portion control, waste logs to reduce variance and improve margins.

-Implements stock control cycles: ordering calendars

-Negotiates pricing, rebates, and delivery schedules with suppliers; reviews alternatives to improve quality-to-cost ratios.

-Defines product specs and approves suppliers against quality, safety, and sustainability criteria.

-Plans purchasing based on sales forecasts and menu mix.

-Examines deliveries.

-Plans, coordinates, and manages daily production: dough schedules, sauce prep, toppings, bake profiles, slicing and service speed.

-Oversees pass management and ticket flow.

-Develops and enforces mise en place lists, prep sheets, and cleaning schedules.

-Implements equipment maintenance plans and coordinates repairs to minimise downtime.

-Ensure health and safety standards

-Supervise, organise, instruct kitchen staff and manage team.

-Build the team structure and headcount plan.

- Develop and implement training programmes.

Essential Requirements

· Minimum 5 years in professional kitchens with 2+ years as Head Chef or Senior Sous Chef managing a high-volume operation.

· Proven track record planning, managing, developing, and implementing kitchen strategies, SOPs, and training frameworks.

· Advanced food costing, budgeting, and inventory management skills with hands-on experience in menu engineering.

· Extensive knowledge of HACCP, food hygiene, and allergen control with valid certifications.

· Strong leadership, communication, and people-management skills; ability to coach, motivate, and hold accountable.

· High proficiency with POS, inventory, and scheduling systems; analytical ability to interpret sales and cost data.

Desirable Requirements

· Experience with New York–style pizza production and dough management.

·-Experience as a Head Chef or Senior Sous Chef

-Exceptional culinary standards

-Strong leadership and organisational ability

-Solid understanding of food safety and kitchen operations

-Calm, professional and solution-focused under pressure

-Positive, driven and committed to developing others

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: From €19.00 per hour

Benefits:

• Bike to work scheme
• Company events
• Employee discount
• Store discount

Work Location: In person