Chef Manager

Holroyd Howe; London; On-site; GBP 40,000; Full time

Job description

Title: Chef Manager – Term Time Only
Location: King Alfred School, North London
Salary: £40,000 per annum

28 days holiday including bank holidays

24 weeks enhanced maternity leave

Bespoke training and development opportunities

Pension and life insurance

Discounts via our Perkbox app (high street shops, holidays & cinema)

Access to employee assistance programme

Free meals at work

HIT Apprenticeships for all experience levels

We’re excited to offer a fantastic opportunity for an experienced and passionate Chef Manager to join our team at King Alfred School, a unique and progressive independent day school in North London.

This role is perfect for someone who’s serious about food, thrives in a busy, creative environment, and understands the importance of delivering a fresh, vibrant offer that appeals to young people.

You’ll be responsible for leading the kitchen operation during term time, crafting seasonal, nutritious menus, managing a small team, and ensuring a high standard of food and service across the board. The school runs Monday to Friday and places a strong emphasis on quality, sustainability, and a positive dining experience for pupils and staff alike.

If you’re ready to make your mark and shape the future of food in education, this could be your next step. Join us and help set the standard for school catering.

Job Description

As a Chef Manager, your focus is to work closely with your teams to develop a great work relationship and provide the best customer service.

• Collaborate with the back of house team to help develop well-balanced and nutritious menus that cater to diverse dietary requirements and preferences.
• Prepare and manage the catering budget, ensuring cost-effective operations while maintaining quality standards.
• Establish strong relationships with school Bursars, Head Teachers and faculty.
• Recruit, train, supervise and motivate catering staff.
• Ensure compliance with food safety regulations, hygiene standards, and quality control protocols.
• Identify opportunities for growth, innovation and improvement in menu offerings, service delivery and operational efficiency.
• Maintain strict adherence to health and safety regulations, ensuring a clean and organised kitchen environment.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Chef Manager in a high-volume, quality-focused environment.
• You can demonstrate that managing, training, and supporting a team has been an important part of your career to date.
• Financially astute, you are very analytical and know how to create and maintain budgets and drive commercial performance.
• Excellent coaching, delegation and influencing skills.
• Ability to prioritise multiple projects in a fast-paced, multi-faceted, creative environment and able to thrive under pressure.
• Ability to multitask, prioritise responsibilities, and adapt to changing circumstances in a fast-paced environment.
• Meticulous organisational abilities and a high attention to detail.
• Empathetic, clear and highly effective verbal and written communication.
• Ability to adapt to challenges and opportunities with a solution-oriented perspective.
• Excellent strategic thinking and critical reasoning skills.

Additional Information

Holroyd Howe is one of the UK’s leading contract caterers, providing fresh innovative food services solely to independent schools and colleges. We are a team of experienced professionals who tailor our catering service provision specifically to suit children of all ages in order to meet the bespoke requirements of each school.

To provide our teams with the right skills to succeed in their jobs, we invest in their training and development. Our exceptional teams of seasoned specialists customise our catering services to fit children of all ages and satisfy the unique needs of our clients.

We pride ourselves on:

Sustainability

Sustainability is at the heart of our thinking; always mindful of the ethics of our sourcing and how we prepare our meals.

We take nutrition seriously and understand the impact a healthy diet has on the fundamental years of development. Meals are always freshly prepared from scratch and packed with nutritious ingredients.

We offer a wide portfolio of training opportunities and experiences, which attracts chefs who are passionate about culinary excellence and menu innovation to our team.

From tasting tables, theme days and food theatre, to chef demonstrations and supplier showcases, we create engaging and fun dining experiences for our students. We work together to make mealtimes exploratory, quirky, and fun for our pupils, helping them build strong and healthy relationships with food.

“Holroyd Howe is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and expect all employees to share this commitment. All roles within Holroyd Howe are regarded as regulated activity, it is an offence to apply for a role in regulated activity if you are barred from working with children. Therefore, we will require an Enhanced DBS which includes a Barred List check for all successful applicants. We will also require shortlisted applicants to provide appropriate information regarding any criminal offences and shortlisted applicants will be subject to an online search of publicly available information on suitability to work with children.“

This appointment is offered on the return of satisfactory professional references.