A restaurant culinary director owns the food across a restaurant group: the menus, recipes, plating specs, food costs and the executive chefs who cook them. They test new dishes, visit every kitchen, and fix it when one dish comes out two different ways at two locations.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, full-service restaurants · BLS, May 2025
Annual pay: 10th percentile $37,310, middle half $46,700 to $77,160, 90th percentile $94,380. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025.
Reports to
Chief Operating Officer
Department
Culinary
Schedule
Weekdays, plus launch and opening nights · Office and test kitchen days, kitchen visits most weeks, and late nights around menu launches, openings and big events
Also called
Corporate executive chef · Corporate chef · Director of culinary operations · VP of culinary
Restaurant culinary director job description template
This is our Role Blueprint, word for word. Replace the highlighted fields and adjust the example targets and pay to fit your company.
The Culinary Director owns the food across our restaurant group. You'll write and test the menus, set recipes, plating specs and costs, choose food vendors and products with the COO, and develop the Executive Chefs who run each kitchen. When a dish tastes different at two locations, it's your job to find out why and fix it.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Develop seasonal and core menus for each concept, within food cost targets set with the CFO.
Write standard recipes, build cards and plating photos, and cost every item on the menu.
Set product specs and approved vendors, and review distributor price changes every [week or month].
Hire, train and develop Executive Chefs, and build a bench of Sous Chefs ready to step up.
Run the group's food safety and allergen program: allergen charts for every dish, labeling standards, cooling logs and line-check forms.
Plan kitchen layout, equipment and opening training for new restaurants and remodels.
Use menu mix and margin data to cut, reprice or rework dishes.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Taste dishes and inspect kitchens on scheduled and surprise visits.
Test new dishes in [your test kitchen or a restaurant kitchen] and train chefs on the final recipe.
Review actual versus theoretical food cost by kitchen and ask chefs to explain the gaps.
Meet with distributor reps and local farms on pricing, quality and supply problems.
Coach Executive Chefs on ordering, kitchen labor and developing their cooks.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Actual versus theoretical food cost by kitchen: [your target].
Menu items meeting cost targets: [your target].
Kitchen audit scores: [your target].
Executive Chef retention: [your target].
Menu launches delivered on schedule: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[8+] years in professional kitchens, including [3+] years as an Executive Chef.
Has written menus and standard recipes and costed them to a target.
Current Certified Food Protection Manager credential (ServSafe Manager or another accredited exam).
Strong working knowledge of the nine major food allergens, cross-contact, and safe cooling and reheating.
Has managed chefs in more than one kitchen, or in one large kitchen with several chefs.
6. Preferred Experience
Culinary degree or formal culinary training.
Experience opening new kitchens.
Experience with recipe and inventory software [such as Meez or MarginEdge].
Background in group purchasing or distributor negotiations.
7. Physical Requirements
Stand and cook for long periods during menu testing and chef training.
Lift cases of product up to [50] pounds, and work near open flame, hot oil and sharp knives.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Split between restaurant kitchens, [your test kitchen] and the central office.
Evenings and weekends during menu launches, openings and large events.
Regular driving between restaurants, with occasional trips to food shows and farms.
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 culinary director 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
What changes when one chef owns the food for a whole group
A head chef runs one kitchen and cooks in it most nights. A culinary director answers for the food in six to eight kitchens and cooks mostly in a test kitchen, so the work is written specs, tasting visits and chefs who follow them.
The same plate in every kitchen
A guest ordering the short rib at two of your restaurants expects the same dish. That takes build cards, plating photos, set portions and product specs down to the brand of butter. When a dish drifts, the culinary director tastes it in each kitchen and checks the recipe, the product and the cook before blaming anyone.
Menus are built to a cost
No new dish reaches the menu until it has a plate cost, and the whole menu must hit the food cost target set with the CFO. When the distributor raises the price of salmon or avocados, the culinary director reprices the dish, swaps the product or reworks it. The POS menu mix shows which dishes sell and which only take up room on the line.
One allergen chart for every location
Servers and cooks at every restaurant work from the chart the culinary director keeps, so it has to be right. Federal food law names nine major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish such as shrimp and crab, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. Sesame joined the list under a 2021 law that took effect in 2023. When a recipe or a supplier changes, the chart changes too, and every kitchen gets the update. Source: 21 U.S.C. 321(qq): definition of major food allergen (Cornell LII).
A central kitchen has its own rules
Many groups make stocks, sauces and braises in one kitchen and send them to the others. USDA treats a central kitchen that ships meat dishes as an exempt restaurant, free of federal meat inspection, only when three things hold. The food leaves ready to eat. It goes straight to restaurants with the same owner. The group's own staff carry it, with no stop for storage. Ask USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service and your health department before you start one. Source: 9 CFR 303.1(d): restaurant and central kitchen exemption from USDA meat inspection (Cornell LII).
Curing and vacuum packing need a sign-off first
House-cured bacon, smoked trout and vacuum-packed batches make good menu items, but health codes treat them as special processes. Minnesota's food code, for one, makes a kitchen get a variance from the regulator before it cures food or smokes it to preserve it. Reduced oxygen packaging needs one too, unless the kitchen follows the code's own controls for it. Ask your health department early and build its approval into the launch date. Source: Minnesota Rules 4626.0415: specialized processing variance requirements.
How much restaurant culinary directors make
The closest BLS group for restaurant culinary directors is chefs and head cooks. Chefs and head cooks who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $29.24 an hour ($60,820 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $62,470 median for chefs and head cooks in all industries. About 101,850 of the 200,040 chefs and head cooks in that survey work for full-service restaurants.
Salary, plus a yearly bonus that rides on group food cost, kitchen audit scores and menus that launch on time. BLS has no separate count for culinary directors and includes them with chefs and head cooks. Expect a director over several kitchens to earn toward the top of that group's range.
Full-service restaurants
$60,820$60,820 median Middle half $46,700–$77,160 10th–90th $37,310–$94,380
All industries
$62,470$62,470 median Middle half $48,440–$78,750 10th–90th $37,900–$98,560
$0k$25k$50k$75k$100k$125k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Full-service restaurants
$37,310
$46,700
$60,820
$77,160
$94,380
All industries
$37,900
$48,440
$62,470
$78,750
$98,560
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Costs a recipe and a whole menu to a target, and explains a miss in plain numbers
Writes recipes and build cards another chef can follow without calling
Tastes critically and gives chefs specific notes they can act on
Has led executive chefs, or a large kitchen with several chefs, and kept the good ones
Knows allergen cross-contact, cooling and holding rules well enough to write them as group standards
Teach these on the job
Each concept's story, guests and price points
Your recipe, inventory and costing software and its reports
Your distributor contracts and approved product list
Your kitchen audit form and how it's scored
When budgets are due and how the CFO reports food cost
The job runs on recipe and costing software such as Meez, MarginEdge or xtraCHEF, menu mix reports from the POS, and a shared library of build cards and plating photos every kitchen can open. A kitchen audit app or paper form, plus the distributor's ordering portal, fill out the week. In the posting, say which of these the group already runs and which ones the new director will set up.
Restaurant culinary director 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.
Fill in the template's blanks from each kitchen's own history, since a steakhouse and a taqueria in the same group won't share a food cost. Go over the results with the COO every quarter.
Actual versus theoretical food cost by kitchen
Line up every kitchen's weekly gap between actual cost and recipe cost on one report. A kitchen that drifts while its sister restaurants hold steady is where the next visit goes.
Menu items meeting cost targets
Count the dishes on each menu whose current plate cost sits inside its target. Re-cost plates whenever distributor prices move, not just on launch day.
Kitchen audit scores
Use one audit form in every kitchen, on planned and surprise visits, and watch each kitchen's trend over several visits rather than reacting to a single bad day.
Executive Chef retention
Track how many executive chefs stay through each year, and write down the real reason for every exit so you can tell pay problems from coaching problems.
Menu launches delivered on schedule
Compare each launch's planned date with the day every kitchen actually served the new menu, with costing, recipes and cook training finished.
Career path
Sous chefLearns to run a line, write prep and train cooks.
Executive chefAnswers for one restaurant's kitchen and its numbers.
Culinary directorOwns menus, recipes and chef development across all the group's kitchens.
What's the difference between a culinary director and an executive chef?
An executive chef heads a single kitchen. They cook the menu to spec, order product, schedule cooks and work the line. The culinary director runs no single kitchen. They write the menus and recipes the executive chefs cook, set product specs, and hire and coach those chefs. Titles shift from group to group, and some call each restaurant's chef a chef de cuisine. Compare duties, not titles.
How much does a restaurant culinary director make?
Chefs and head cooks who work for full-service restaurants earned a median of $29.24 an hour ($60,820 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $46,700 and $77,160 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
When does a restaurant group need a culinary director?
Usually when the founding chef can no longer taste every kitchen each week, or when the group adds a second concept. Watch for the same dish tasting different by location, food cost that swings between similar kitchens, and executive chefs leaving because no one is developing them. Until then, a strong executive chef at the flagship can write recipes for the others.
Does a culinary director need a culinary degree or certification?
A degree isn't required. The template lists culinary training as preferred, and costed menus and years running kitchens count for more. The one credential it requires is a food protection manager certificate, such as ServSafe Manager. American Culinary Federation certification is voluntary. Its Certified Culinary Administrator level fits this job well: it asks for three years as an executive chef with budget duties, plus a current ACF chef certification.
What does a menu need when it serves raw or undercooked food?
A consumer advisory, worded the way your state's code says. Minnesota's has two parts. The menu marks each raw or undercooked animal food, such as oysters on the half shell, by describing it or adding an asterisk. The asterisk leads to a footnote, such as one saying that eating raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish or eggs may increase the risk of foodborne illness. Build it into every menu template so no kitchen's special goes out without it.
How often should a culinary director visit each restaurant?
Plan visits by need. New and struggling kitchens get the most time, and steady ones still get a visit every few weeks, some of them unannounced. End each visit with written notes and a date to check the fix. A director who only shows up for launches finds problems after guests do.
