Executive Chef 

Duties of an Executive Chef 

I’ve mentioned before that an Executive Chef is both a manager and a food expert. That’s because being an Executive Chef is pretty much as much about leading the kitchen and looking after its managerial tasks as it is about planning the menu, developing new recipes, and running the whole establishment. As an executive Chef, you would be expected to do the following:

• Hiring and training new chefs
• Coming up with new dishes for the menu that keep customers returning to taste them
• Developing the menu and deciding how each menu item will be priced
• Coming up with an overall plan for the restaurant and decide long term goals for it, then make sure those goals are met
• Working with other departments in the restaurant like the finance department, the cleaning staff, the interior designers, and managers to make sure that their vision for the restaurant is executed smoothly outside the kitchen as well as inside it
• Training the staff and teaching them how to prepare the new dishes on the menu
• Keeping stock levels consistent and sourcing fresh ingredients from the proper places
• Ensuring that hygiene standards are being met or exceeded
• Taking responsibility for all kitchen operations and that the proper procedures are being followed – if anything goes wrong under their watch, they will answer for it
• Ensuring the kitchen is stocked with all the right equipment and utensils
• Motivating the kitchen staff on challenging days
• Ensuring customer satisfaction and consistency in the restaurant’s performance
• Navigating change within the workplace and making sure things run smoothly while expanding the restaurant

Many things that an executive chef might be expected to do, though, are not part of the usual job description. Executive chefs are usually people who’ve been in the industry for at least a decade, and many times they rely on their own personal contacts and the professional relationships they have maintained over this time to make the restaurant a success. This is why you need a very particular mixture of skills to be successful as an Executive Chef – let’s talk about them.

The problem with centering our whole discussion around the job description is that what the Executive Chef actually does in the kitchen goes way beyond those things. Plus, all kinds of places hire Executive Chefs, from the White House to cruise ships and casinos.

The job is dynamic, ever-changing, and understanding it involves a much more detailed discussion than just a glimpse over some bullet points. If we want to really get an idea of all the things an Executive Chef does, we’ll have to take a look at all the skills they usually need to navigate their position successfully.

Once you’re done reading this section you’ll have a much better idea of how crucial Executive Chefs are to the restaurants they run. In many cases, they’re what makes a restaurant successful and you can’t separate one from the other.