HEAD CHEF

Job Description

1. Provides guidance for all aspects of the kitchen’s day-to-day operations that precludes the management of food hygiene and safety, enforcing performance and quality standards, and monitoring to ensure attainment of these goals
2. Controls and directs the food preparation process efficiently and professionally
3. Creates meals using new or current culinary inventions or as the business prescribes
4. Approves and polishes dishes before they are delivered and served to customers
5. Produces quality menu that could change seasonally as the business requires
6. Places equipment, tools or ingredient orders in response to possible detected shortfalls
7. When required, makes arrangements for repairs of cooking equipment
8. Hires, manages, trains and educates kitchen workers to be par with the highest possible culinary standards
9. Manages kitchen stocks and ensures minimal wastage
10. Forecasts and assesses personnel requirements ensuring no shortage or excess of kitchen staff while keeping labor costs in control
11. Procures, stores, and handles all food products and materials within the agreed-upon budget and maximizes gross profit to include the effective staff management and payroll expenses
12. Supervises his/her subordinates’ work on dishes and guides them, at times hand holding them, to produce the best expected outcome
13. Ensures that base food preparations and mise en place are well organized for service, allowing smooth kitchen operations
14. Calculate the workload and remuneration of kitchen staff
15. Trains kitchen staff to maintain consistency in the highest possible standard in food production and workplace hygiene, as well as to support a continuous improvement process
16. Maintains payroll, punctuality and attendance records
17. Follows and strictly implements all food and sanitary rules as well as safety guidelines
18. Encourages coworkers to cooperate and respect one another, motivates team work
19. Keeps updated in the latest trends in culinary trends and kitchen processes and technologies
20. Helps in the sourcing of food raw materials to ensure quality dishes and coordinates with vendors to guarantee reliability of ingredient supplies at the best possible quality within the department’s food cost target set by management
21. Prepares duty rotas for kitchen staff to provide appropriate coverage at all times while accounting for the seasonality of the business and keeping overtime to the minimum
22. Ensures that staff are aware of the job list and the different sections it covers such as meal schedules, functions, and holidays
23. Ascertains that the personnel follow the regulations on hygiene, stock rotation, dates, storages, refrigerator temperature control, pest control, reporting of malfunctioning equipment, reporting of notifiable illnesses, and reporting of absenteeism, whether due to illness or otherwise
24. If and when necessary, keeps recipe files in excellent condition and up-to-date
25. Undertakes any other duties and ad hoc related roles as the business requires

Qualifications

1. Associate or Bachelor’s Degree in Culinary Arts or Science, Business, or relevant fields
2. Five (5) to ten (7) years of experience as a chef
3. Completed the WSQ Basic Food Hygiene Course – Food Safety Course Levels 1 and 2
4. Updated in control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH) regulations or hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) methods
5. Proven ability of kitchen management
6. Strong interpersonal and leadership skills
7. Tenacious in picking up concepts and possesses strong logical and analytical problem-solving skills
8. Able to grasp business requirements and processes
9. Good understanding of computer software such as POS, restaurant management system, and Microsoft Office
10. Service oriented, meticulous, attention to detail
11. Good communication skills
12. Team player