Head Chef

About the role

Head Chef to own the Peacemaker kitchen end to end — standards, menu, costs, roster, training, compliance. You are the single point of contact between the kitchen and the venue manager. When something's wrong with the food, it's your call to fix it. When something's right, it's because you built it.

You'll inherit a capable senior cook who knows the pit and wants to stay on the tools. You're not starting from scratch, and you're not walking into a hostile kitchen.

Roughly 80% of your time is Peacemaker. The other 20% is group-level: input into food at Volstead and Devil You Don't, where venue managers have asked for a chef's eye on the offering.

Key responsibilities

• Own the menu with full creative control at Peacemaker, subject to a 35% blended food COGS target
• Maintain food quality and consistency, restoring Peacemaker's BBQ reputation
• Manage kitchen P&L including costing, ordering, supplier relationships, waste, and stocktake
• Lead the team through rostering, training, hiring, and performance management
• Ensure compliance with food safety, allergen management, temperature logs, and council requirements
• Provide menu development support and standards input across the other two venues
• Work the pass during services, learning the venue, volume and team

About you

• Proven experience running a kitchen — head chef, senior sous stepping up, or equivalent
• Genuine ownership mentality; you set the standard and hold people to it
• Solid commercial head: costing, GP, ordering, waste, rostering to a budget
• Ability to lead a small team in a high-volume, high-energy venue
• Current food safety qualifications, or willingness to get them
• Desirable: Low-and-slow BBQ experience, or genuine excitement about learning it
• Desirable: Menu development across multiple sites
• Desirable: Experience in a venue where food supports a strong bar business

About us

Splinter Group operates three venues in Canberra. Peacemaker Saloon (Braddon) is a saloon bar built around BBQ and bourbon, opened 2024, with over 100 capacity plus covered outdoor seating. Won Best New Business at the Australian Business Champion Awards; shortlisted for Best New Bar and Best Whiskey Bar at the Australian Bartender Awards. Volstead Repeal (Braddon) is a whisky and cocktail bar, finalist in the Australian Bartender Awards whisky bar category three years running, and twice ACT Cocktail Bar of the Year. Devil You Don't (New Acton) is the newest cocktail bar, finalist for Best New Bar this year. We're a young ownership group. We move fast, we back our people, and we'd rather have one strong opinion in the kitchen than three polite ones.

Benefits

• $80,000–$95,000 + super
• Real creative control, not just a menu handed down you have to follow
• Title flexibility — for the right person this role can be titled Group Executive Chef
• A clear path to broader group responsibility as we grow
• Sponsorship considered for the right candidate
• Owners who answer the phone