A hotel executive chef runs every kitchen on the property, from the restaurant line and room service to banquets for several hundred guests. They write and cost the menus, turn each week's banquet orders into production plans, lead the cooks and stewards, and keep every kitchen ready for an inspection.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
The Executive Chef runs every hotel kitchen: the restaurant, in-room dining, the pool menu and banquets. You'll write menus and recipes, cost every dish, turn each week's banquet event orders (BEOs) into production plans, lead the cooks and kitchen stewards, and keep the kitchens inspection-ready. A plated dinner for [300] and a full breakfast can land on the same day.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Write menus for the restaurant, in-room dining, pool and banquets with the Food and Beverage Director, and cost every item to the food cost target.
Turn each week's BEOs into production sheets, orders and kitchen schedules, and plan when each event's food is cooked, held and plated.
Order from approved vendors against pars and the event calendar, and check deliveries for temperature, quality and price.
Hire, train and schedule cooks and kitchen stewards, and keep kitchen labor inside the forecast.
Run food safety for every kitchen: cooling and holding logs, labels and dates, allergen procedures and the cleaning schedule.
Plan special diet and allergy meals from BEO counts, and label them so servers get each one to the right seat.
Lead menu tastings for wedding couples and meeting planners with the sales team.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Walk the walk-ins, banquet kitchen and restaurant line at open: temps, labels, prep and product to use first.
Check the day's BEOs, final guarantees and the in-room dining forecast, and move cooks to where the volume is.
Taste the restaurant line before service and banquet food before it's plated.
Run the line or the banquet plate-up during the biggest meal of the day.
Review invoices, waste logs and yesterday's food cost by outlet.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Food cost by outlet and for banquets: [your target].
Kitchen labor cost against forecast: [your target].
Banquet food served on the event timeline: [your target].
Health inspection score for each kitchen: [your target].
Guest food quality score: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[7+] years in professional kitchens, including [3+] years as an Executive Chef, Executive Sous Chef or Banquet Chef at a hotel, resort or large catering operation.
Has costed menus and run food and labor costs to a budget.
Has produced banquets for [several hundred] guests from BEOs.
Current ServSafe Manager or other accredited food protection manager certificate.
Knows the food code rules for cooling, reheating, holding and allergen cross-contact.
6. Preferred Experience
Culinary degree or a formal apprenticeship.
Resort experience with several outlets and outdoor events.
Certified Executive Chef (CEC) from the American Culinary Federation.
Experience with [your recipe costing and inventory software].
7. Physical Requirements
Stand and walk between kitchens, storerooms and banquet rooms for most of a [10]-hour day.
Lift cases, stock pots and full hotel pans up to [50] pounds, and work near open flame, fryers and steam kettles.
Work in walk-in coolers and freezers during receiving and inventory.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Salaried, with early breakfasts, late banquets, weekends and holidays.
Hot, loud kitchens with wet floors, plus office time for menus, ordering and schedules.
Part of the manager-on-duty rotation [if your hotel includes the chef].
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new executive chef gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
A hotel kitchen opens with breakfast and closes after the last room service tray. On many days, a plated banquet for a few hundred people lands in between.
One crew covers every outlet
Breakfast, the restaurant line, room service and the day's banquets all draw on the same cooks. The chef builds one schedule from the covers forecast and the week's BEOs. They decide which cooks float between outlets, and they put a sous chef or banquet chef in charge of each big plate-up so the restaurant line isn't left short.
Cooking ahead means cooling fast
Big events mean stocks, braises and sauces made a day or more ahead, and all of it has to cool safely. Oregon's code, for one, allows two ways. In one, food at 135°F must reach 70°F within 2 hours and 41°F within 6 hours in all. In the other, it sits uncovered, two inches deep or less, in a cooler holding 41°F or colder. The chef plans shallow pans, ice baths, chillers and cooling logs into production. Source: Oregon Health Authority: Food Code Fact Sheet #31, Cooling.
Special meals are cooked apart
Banquet orders arrive with counts of vegetarian, gluten-free and allergy meals. Federal law names nine major food allergens: wheat, soybeans, sesame, peanuts, tree nuts, milk, eggs, fish and crustacean shellfish. The chef has those meals cooked first on clean equipment, held apart from the main batch and labeled, so they never pass through the general plate-up. Source: 21 U.S.C. 321(qq): Definition of major food allergen (Cornell LII).
Tastings help sell the event
Wedding couples and meeting planners often taste the menu before they sign or before final counts are due. The chef runs those tastings with catering sales, explains what the kitchen can do at the group's size, and steers clients away from dishes that won't hold up through a long service.
Banquet food is sold by the head
Each banquet menu has a price per guest and a guaranteed count. Cook far past the guarantee and the extra comes out of food cost. Run short and a table waits for dinner. The chef sets how much extra each menu gets. After every event, they track what comes back to the kitchen.
How much hotel executive chefs make
The closest BLS group for hotel executive chefs is chefs and head cooks. Chefs and head cooks who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $35.55 an hour ($73,940 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s above the $62,470 median for chefs and head cooks in all industries. About 19,060 of the 200,040 chefs and head cooks in that survey work for hotels and resorts.
Usually a salaried job. Hotels that pay a chef's bonus tie it to food cost, kitchen labor and inspection results. A salaried chef can still be owed overtime: the title proves nothing, and both the pay and the real duties have to meet the rules.
Hotels and resorts
$73,940$73,940 median Middle half $59,540–$91,140 10th–90th $48,500–$115,260
All industries
$62,470$62,470 median Middle half $48,440–$78,750 10th–90th $37,900–$98,560
$25k$50k$75k$100k$125k$150k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Hotels and resorts
$48,500
$59,540
$73,940
$91,140
$115,260
All industries
$37,900
$48,440
$62,470
$78,750
$98,560
BLS groups hotels, resorts and motels as traveler accommodation. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Can turn a week of event orders into prep lists, orders and a cook schedule
Costs recipes and menus and keeps food cost on target month after month
Runs cooling, holding and allergen procedures that hold up to an inspector
Leads line cooks, banquet cooks and stewards across early and late shifts
Tastes and corrects food before it leaves, on the line and at the plate-up
Can sit with a couple or a meeting planner and shape a menu they'll sign
Teach these on the job
Your brand's menu standards and recipe specs
Your recipe costing, inventory and ordering systems
Your vendor list, ordering cutoffs and delivery days
How your BEOs are laid out and where changes show up
Each outlet's menu history and best sellers
The chef plans from the week's BEOs, costs recipes and counts stock in kitchen software, orders through vendor portals, and keeps temperature logs on paper or a tablet. Describe the kitchen's heavy equipment, like a combi oven, tilt skillet, steam kettle or blast chiller, because experienced chefs judge the volume you can handle by it.
Hotel executive chef interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Each target should come from your own budget and kitchen history. Months full of banquets run differently from slow ones, so review the numbers month by month.
Food cost by outlet and for banquets
Food cost divided by food sales, kept apart for the restaurant, in-room dining, the pool and banquets after each month's count. Hold each banquet up against the costed menu for that event.
Kitchen labor cost against forecast
Cook and steward hours and pay compared with the forecast for covers and events. Review it every week, paying most attention to weeks when banquet counts fell late.
Banquet food served on the event timeline
Did each course leave the kitchen when the BEO said it would? Have the banquet captain note late courses and the reason, and go over them at the weekly BEO meeting.
Health inspection score for each kitchen
Log each official score by kitchen. Between visits, have a sous chef inspect a different kitchen with the health department's own form and fix what turns up.
Guest food quality score
Food scores from guest surveys and reviews of the restaurant and room service, plus what planners say in post-event surveys. Read the comments for any dish named more than once.
Career path
CookLearns the line, banquet production and kitchen standards.
Sous chef or banquet chefRuns a shift or the banquet kitchen and writes production sheets.
Executive sous chefSecond in command across every kitchen.
Executive ChefRuns every kitchen, menu and food cost.
Does a hotel executive chef need a food safety certificate?
Rules vary by state and county. In Ohio, for one, each risk level III and IV food operation needs at least one employee with supervisory duties who holds the state's manager certification in food protection. Level III covers kitchens that cook food and cool it for later. A hotel banquet kitchen does that every week. Ask for a current manager-level certificate from an accredited exam, such as ServSafe Manager, and check your health department's rule.
How much does a hotel executive chef make?
Chefs and head cooks who work for hotels, resorts, and motels earned a median of $35.55 an hour ($73,940 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $59,540 and $91,140 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Should a hotel executive chef be ACF certified?
Count it in the chef's favor, but don't require it. ACF's Certified Executive Chef asks for five of the last ten years as the chef running food production, with at least five full-time kitchen staff under them. Executive sous chefs count. Candidates also take set courses, including food safety and cost control, and pass a written and a practical exam. It shows a chef has run a kitchen at size and kept learning.
What does an executive sous chef do in a hotel?
The executive sous chef is the chef's second in command. They run the kitchens day to day, write the cook schedule, check deliveries and fill in during the chef's days off. At a resort with several outlets, this is the person who keeps banquets and the restaurant moving while the chef is in a tasting or a budget meeting.
Can one executive chef cover several hotels in a small group?
Yes, if the hotels share menus and each kitchen has a strong sous chef or lead cook on site. The chef sets recipes, costing and standards, visits each kitchen on a schedule and runs the biggest events in person. Make sure each kitchen still has someone on every shift who holds the food safety certificate your health department asks for.
