Production Head Chef

Bovingdons is one of London’s oldest and largest award winning independent caterers. We operate as the exclusive events caterer at 9 prestigious venues and are on the approved list at 20-plus venues across London; in addition we manage 10 café sites including our high street Flotsam and Jetsam brand. Our event catering operations are soon to be based from our brand new, state of the art central production unit based in Riverside Road, SW17, with satellite kitchens across our venues and cafés. 

We are seeking an experienced, dynamic Production Head Chef with extensive production experience. You will join the senior kitchen leadership team and support the Group Head Chef with team, rota and stock management whilst ensuring an efficient production schedule for our multi-faceted kitchen operation.

You will be expected to support and substitute the Group Head Chef in day to day running of the business including:-

Day-to-day:

• Food budgets: ensure these are met by placing orders in a timely and efficient manner, with accurate stock control and minimising food waste
  • Monthly stock takes.
  • Weekly fridge checks insuring stock rotation.
• Ensure food safety, hygiene and health & safety requirements are met, including:
  • Ensure own certification is up to date
  • HACCP, e.g. fridge temperatures, food labelling, temperature sheets in kitchen and on events
  • Kitchen is cleaned and fully compliant with health & safety requirements at all times
  • Adequate training of new staff on kitchen equipment
• Independent event delivery (e.g. food preparation at central unit, packing and delivering to events, ensuring successful service)
  • Attending three to four evening events per week in busy times.
• Produce menus to budget in both food and labour cost in a timely manner as requested to support the wider company objectives

Leadership and staff management:

• Effective leadership of the kitchen when Group head chef is absent, ensuring in particular that lieu days across the entire team including head chefs are managed effectively
• Proactively help to deliver to labour budgets for both salaried and casual chefs (e.g. sending casual chefs home early if minimal work left to do)
• Proactive and organised approach to managing the rest of the team from start to end of the day
• Delegate effectively and when appropriate
• Take responsibility for large sections of team performance and independent personal output
• Manage time across the year ensuring availability in the busiest periods
• Training and encouragement of junior staff
• Mature and positive communication style, encouraging a happy and efficient work place, building respect and authority among peers

Planning and preparation:

• Prepare and deliver tastings to a good standard to please the client while ensuring the specification is suitable for events
• Contribute to innovative and exciting food menu design that is suitable for event delivery, ensuring consistency across events, providing training to the team where needed
• With the Group head chef and team, develop annual new menus plus bespoke menus throughout the year, and continue to develop dishes as required for successful delivery and effective food and labour cost management.

PERSON SPECIFICATION 

Experience 

• The ideal candidate will have at least 5+ years experience within a similar senior leadership role in an events or volume catering business
• Ideally with experience of multi-sites  
• Experience with a central production kitchens is essential
• Must hold relevant qualifications including Food Hygiene Level 3

Skills 

• Strong leadership and experience of multi team reporting lines
• Autonomy and the ability to make effective decisions and produce results
• Well presented with excellent communication and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain good working relationships
• Strong rota, ordering and logistics management
• Ability to create and implement process

What We Offer

• Free lunch in our central kitchen and in any of our cafés 
• Free tea & coffee from our cafés and 50% discount on all other items on your days off
• Employee Assistant Programme with access to GPs and wellbeing support
• 20 days holiday in addition to bank holidays (increases by 1 for every calendar year of service with us - up to a maximum of 5)
• Company pension
• Season ticket loan scheme
• An engaging & supportive work environment

We offer industry competitive salaries and an attractive benefits package.

Bovingdons is an Equal Opportunities Employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and communities.