A restaurant executive chef runs one kitchen in a restaurant group, cooking the group's menu to spec and leading the sous chef, cooks and dishwashers. They order and receive product, count inventory, build the kitchen schedule and answer for the kitchen's food cost, payroll and health inspections.
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
Culinary Director
Department
Kitchen
Schedule
Five shifts, Friday and Saturday nights · Long days through dinner service plus afternoon office time; holidays and private events are the busiest nights
Also called
Chef de cuisine · Head chef · Kitchen manager
Restaurant executive chef 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.
We're hiring an Executive Chef to run one restaurant's kitchen. You'll cook the group's menu to spec, create specials within our food cost targets, order and receive product, and lead the Sous Chef, cooks and dishwashers. You report to the Culinary Director on food and work side by side with the GM on labor, costs and guest experience.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Hold every plate to the group's recipes and plating specs, and taste through the line before service.
Order product from approved vendors against par levels, and check deliveries for quality, temperature and credits.
Run the weekly inventory and explain the gap between actual and theoretical food cost.
Build the kitchen schedule within the labor budget and adjust it for covers and events.
Hire, train and develop the Sous Chef, line cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers.
Keep the kitchen inspection-ready every day: temp logs, labels and dates, cooling, cleaning and pest control.
Create specials that use product on hand and hit cost, with the Culinary Director's approval.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Check the walk-ins and prep areas at open: temps, labels, dates and what needs to be used first.
Set the prep list with the Sous Chef from reservations, pars and events.
Work the line or expo during the busiest part of service.
Check ticket times and send-backs, and talk with the Floor Manager about any table the kitchen let down.
Review invoices for price changes and short shipments before they go to the Bookkeeper.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Actual versus theoretical food cost: [your target].
Kitchen labor percentage: [your target].
Health inspection score: [your target].
Average ticket time: [your target].
Dishes sent back: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[5+] years in full-service kitchens, with [2+] years as a Sous Chef or Executive Chef.
Current ServSafe Manager or equivalent food protection manager certification.
Has managed food cost and kitchen labor to a budget, and can explain a variance.
Can cook every station on the line and teach others to do it.
Knows the food code rules for cooling, reheating, hot and cold holding, and allergen cross-contact.
6. Preferred Experience
Culinary school or a formal apprenticeship.
Experience in a multi-unit group with standard recipes.
Experience with ordering and inventory software [such as MarginEdge or xtraCHEF].
Has opened a new kitchen or reset one after a menu change.
7. Physical Requirements
Stand for most of a [10]-hour shift in a hot kitchen, often on the line.
Move between the line, walk-ins and office, and lift cases up to [50] pounds when receiving.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
[Five] shifts a week, including Friday and Saturday nights and most holidays.
In the kitchen during service, with office time for ordering, scheduling and inventory.
Monthly chef meetings with the Culinary Director at [location].
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
What's different about running a kitchen inside a restaurant group
A chef at an independent restaurant writes the menu and reports straight to whoever owns the place. Here the menu, recipes and vendors come from the Culinary Director, and the executive chef's job is to cook them right every night, run the kitchen's numbers and build the team.
Two people to keep in the loop
The Culinary Director sets the recipes, plating and approved products, so the chef can't switch a produce vendor or rewrite a dish alone. The general manager shares the labor budget, guest complaints and the Saturday rush. A short delivery, a cook who quit or a dish that keeps coming back goes to both of them the same day.
Specials are the chef's own cooking
The group menu changes on the Culinary Director's calendar, not the chef's. Specials are where an executive chef gets to create. A good special uses product already in the walk-in, hits its cost target, lists its allergens for the servers and gets the Culinary Director's sign-off before it's printed.
Food cost is counted every week
The chef counts the walk-ins, freezers and dry storage each week. Then they compare actual food cost with what the recipes and sales say it should be. A big gap usually points to waste, heavy portions, missing product or a price increase nobody caught on an invoice. Group reports set each kitchen beside its sisters, so the chef needs an answer ready.
Inspection-ready on an ordinary Tuesday
The kitchen has to pass on any day, not only the week an inspection is expected. That means current temperature and cooling logs, every container labeled and dated, clean hoods and floors, and a pest control vendor who visits on schedule. In a group, the Culinary Director's own audits check the same things, and one bad score reflects on every restaurant.
Hiring cooks never really stops
Cooks and dishwashers turn over all year, so the chef is always interviewing. Being part of a group helps: a cook can pick up a weekend at a different kitchen in the group, and a promising one can train at the flagship. The chefs who develop a sous chef ready to run a kitchen are the ones the group picks for the next opening.
How much restaurant executive chefs make
The closest BLS group for restaurant executive chefs 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.
Usually salaried, with a quarterly or annual bonus when the kitchen hits its food cost, labor and inspection goals. Some groups add a bonus for opening a new kitchen or training a sous chef who moves up.
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
Can cook every station on the line and step onto any of them mid-rush
Reads a food cost report and can say where the gap came from
Builds a kitchen schedule that fits both the labor budget and the reservation book
Sends back a plate that misses the build card and shows the cook how to fix it
Keeps logs, labels, dates and cooling right without being reminded
Has hired and trained cooks and dishwashers, and grown a sous chef
Teach these on the job
The group's recipes, build cards and plating specs
Which vendors the group buys from, the ordering calendar and each item's par
Your inventory and invoice software
How the group reports food cost and labor each week
Your concept's service style and what the GM expects from the kitchen
Expect ticket screens or printers tied to the POS, probe and infrared thermometers, and inventory and invoice software such as MarginEdge, xtraCHEF or Restaurant365. Cook schedules often live in an app like 7shifts or HotSchedules. If the kitchen runs a combi oven, smoker, wood grill or other specialty equipment, put it in the posting, since chefs who know it will apply.
Restaurant 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.
Start each target from this kitchen's last few months and from sister kitchens of the same concept, then settle the numbers in one meeting with the Culinary Director and GM together.
Actual versus theoretical food cost
After each weekly count, take opening inventory plus purchases minus closing inventory, then compare it with recipe cost times items sold from the POS. Track the gap week by week.
Kitchen labor percentage
Kitchen wages and overtime from payroll as a share of that week's food sales. Look at it by day too, since an overstaffed Monday lunch can hide behind a busy Saturday.
Health inspection score
The result of each official inspection, with any repeat violations noted. Between inspections, the Culinary Director's audits on the same items show slips early.
Average ticket time
From the kitchen display system: minutes from a ticket firing to the plates leaving the pass, split by course and by the busiest hour of the night.
Dishes sent back
Log every returned or remade plate in the POS along with why it came back (overcooked, wrong item, cold), and sort through the reasons with the sous chef once a week.
Career path
Line cookMasters the stations and learns to cook the menu at speed.
Sous chefRuns service from the pass and covers the chef's days off.
Executive chefLeads one kitchen's food, team, schedule and costs.
Culinary directorWrites the menus and coaches every chef in the group.
Is an executive chef the same as a chef de cuisine?
At a single restaurant the two titles often mean the same job. Some groups save executive chef for the person over several kitchens and call the head of one a chef de cuisine. In this template, the executive chef runs one restaurant's kitchen and reports to the Culinary Director. Use the title chefs in your market search for, and keep the duties clear in the ad.
How much does a restaurant executive chef 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.
Should an executive chef cook on the line every night?
During the busiest part of service, yes, on the line or at the pass, as the template says. But a chef who works a station all night has no time to order, count, schedule or train, and those are the jobs that move food cost and labor. Let the sous chef run some services so the chef can do that work in the afternoon.
Does an executive chef need culinary school?
No. BLS says chefs often start as line cooks and learn from the chefs they work for, and some train through apprenticeships. The template lists culinary school or a formal apprenticeship as preferred. The American Culinary Federation's Certified Executive Chef credential is voluntary. A candidate needs five years as a chef de cuisine, executive sous chef or chef in charge of food production in the last decade, with a crew of five or more full-timers under them. They also sit a written exam and a cooking exam.
How do you test an executive chef candidate?
Book a paid tasting. Ask them to cook a few dishes from your menu to the build card, plus one special from product you pick that morning. Then hand them last month's inventory counts and invoices and ask where the food cost went. A chef who cooks beautifully but can't explain those numbers will struggle in a group that reports every week.
