Executive Chef Interview Questions
The regular operations of kitchens in restaurants and hotels are overseen by an Executive Chef. Designing the menu, recruiting, training, and supervising kitchen personnel, and ensuring a high-quality, cost-effective product are some of their responsibilities.
Here’s a list of questions to test the skills of your prospective candidates efficiently:
- What drew you to a career as a chef in the first place? Why did you decide to pursue a career in the culinary arts?
- Describe your education and any training you’ve had.
- What changes would you make to our establishment? What would you add to the menu if you could?
- How do you take responsibility for your customers’ experience?
- Describe your Purchasing and Receiving roles to me.
- What role does food cost play in menu planning?
- What are some of the best food vendors you’ve had the pleasure of working with?
- What are your specialities in terms of cuisine?
- How do you change your menu according to the seasons?
- What steps do you take to ensure that the food you serve to customers is of high quality?
- Do you accept requests for ingredient substitutions from customers?
- Consider a moment when y You addressed a situation where a client was dissatisfied. What did you do and how did it turn out?
- How do you keep your labour costs in check? How do you keep track of this?
- Describe how you go about recruiting people. What characteristics do you seek in your kitchen staff?
- How do you go about terminating employees?
- What level of involvement do you have in the management of your cooks? What level of autonomy do you owe them?
- Explain how you’ve worked with multicultural and multilingual teams. What precautions do you take to ensure that everybody is at ease?
- Consider a time when you had to deal with a troublesome employee. What were the problems and what were the results?
- What are your views on new employee training and mentoring?
