Sous Chef

Full-time chef in Braddon ACT

Our kitchen needs an experienced chef for our growing food service operation.

We have recently expanded our capacity and need a sous chef to join our team to learn and support our exhausted head chef.  Poor bugger needs to sit down and take a nap.

Benefits?

• Above award wage
• Clear pathway to progress to head chef
• Excellent work environment, especially the manager who wrote this ad.

Tasks/Responsibilities

Our sous chef will be shadowing the head chef to learn all the processes in order to run the food service operation later when the head chef takes on different responsibilities.  Some of the many tasks needed to demonstrate appropriate experience are:

The ability to:

• Plan menus as required
• Efficiently estimate quantities and labour required to deliver the goods.
• Liaise with suppliers and take care of selecting and ordering ingredients with a strong focus on dietaries.
• Manage presentation and ongoing quality control at every point of the preparation.
• Identify and communicate all food preparation issues with management including dietaries and nutrition.  Then organise and communicate amended processes to kitchen and wait staff to ensure food is prepared and served exactly as planned.
• Advise kitchen staff of correct preparation and cooking procedures including use of equipment, volume and weight measurements, and correctly following recipes by way of demonstration.  This means you need to know your way around the kitchen better than everyone else.
• Jump in and take care of preparation and cooking of food when and where required so when little Johnny calls in sick, the operation doesn’t take a dive.
• Demonstrate a strong knowledge of all hygiene regulations and ensure staff implement related procedures and know how to report on any issues or faults.
• Interview, select, and then train new staff as required.
• Demonstrate experience with accepted methods of freezing and food preservation to avoid sore tummies and law suits.

Qualification and Experience

This is not a role an inexperienced kitchen worker could fumble through.  Knowledge and experience is paramount as you’ll hit the floor running.  To get the job, an interview will require you to:

• Show us your advanced diploma in commercial cookery
• Evidence at least 2 years equivalent experience working in a commercial kitchen in a position of responsibility.
• Demonstrate your ability to actually prepare, cook, and plate food.
• Demonstrate your skills in menu planning, stock control, and costing.
• Show clear knowledge of dietaries with a focus on allergen management on top of general dietaries.
• Demonstrate a strong understanding of Australian food safety and hygiene rules.
• Show how you can work at your station independently, but also that you can work as an important part of the greater team to achieve great outcomes.
• Demonstrate you can speak the lingo so you’re able to communicate with all facets of food service from management to suppliers to staff and especially guests.
• Have previous employers back you to demonstrate you’re able to handle time management among other things.  Arriving late and leaving early only serves to let the team down.
• Show a willingness and ability to problem-solve when things inevitably go wrong.  “Combi oven is down! Fire up the extra friars and get those schnitzels though until the combi is sorted - Pronto!!”
• We work when it’s busy then relax when it’s quiet.  A part of the deal, and the reason why you get 25% above award, is because you may work through a week of super-busy, then take a bunch of days off when it’s super quiet.  This isn’t a casual kitchen hand position, you need to front up when needed to ensure the kitchen runs smoothly.

If all of the above hasn’t scared you away and you think you possess just enough crazy to handle jumping out of the saucepan to dance around in the frying pan, then WE WANT YOU!

About CAC

Canberra  Accommodation Centre is a busy accommodation and food service business with a growing group accommodation arm.  We take hundreds of groups each year from 10 to 250 people and provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The operation recently had an upgrade in order to handle bigger numbers.  That includes the kitchen AND accommodation.

This is why we need someone with some tenacity to help get through the anarchy that occurs.  Come and join our team, roll your sleeves up, and jump on the roller coaster.