Senior Chef
What the work is
Manages and oversees the operation of kitchens in a dining or other food service establishment.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Develops and monitors kitchen budgets, considering labour, ingredient and equipment costs
- Designs and plans menus based on seasonal trends, customer preferences and costs
- Oversees the recruitment, development and training of Chefs and other kitchen staff
- Assigns tasks and responsibilities to Chefs and Cooks
- Oversees the preparation and presentation of dishes
- Uses and teaches advanced culinary skills and techniques required to prepare menu pieces
- Inspects ingredients and dishes to ensure quality standards are met
- Enforces strict adherence to health and safety regulations in the kitchen
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in the banquet and restaurant kitchens of a fictional city hotel, led by an executive chef. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A function of four hundred is plated on time, and the pass runs without a raised voice
- A junior cook you trained takes over a section and does it better than you did
- The inspector walks through your kitchen and has nothing to say
Hard days
- A function planner promises a menu that the kitchen cannot make safely in the time
- Two good cooks who will not speak to each other, in a space where everyone is shoulder to shoulder
- Long split shifts and the pressure of food that has to be right every time
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 161631, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.