JOB OVERVIEW:

The Executive Chef leads a team of culinary professionals in the creative development of compelling new menu items as well as the improvement of current menu items in support of a competitively superior dining experience, with minimal supervision. The Executive Chef partners with Culinary Operations to ensure menu items can be executed with excellence in the restaurants.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Guest

• Remains current on industry and consumer trends and knowledge; supports others in defining areas for brand-building opportunities to serve competitively superior food and deliver food news
• Converts brand strategies into compelling core and promotional menu offerings that drive guest satisfaction, guest traffic and brand equity
• Interacts with the media, employees, vendor-partners, thought leaders and the community in representing the brand

Employee

• Coaches others on sharing and teaching professional culinary techniques and terminology
• Develops and nurtures relationships with other Restaurant Support Center teams to remain informed of initiatives and disseminate applicable guest feedback
• Develops team members by seeking out and supporting training, development, and other professional growth opportunities; manages individual and team performance through coaching, feedback and PMP discussions

Financial

• Manages resources, tasks, scope, and budgets for projects; supports and manages budgeting, and invoice payment for vendor-related work
• Manages the budget and oversees the product order process for food development, tests, recipes, merchandising materials and food shots
• Develops food within specified cost parameters to enable achievement of business targets (guest count, margin, menu mix and sales) while delivering on flavor requirements
• Develops and leverages Darden purchasing and supplier networks to achieve cost efficiencies while procuring quality ingredients and introducing new food; maximizes supplier insights and chef resources

Process Excellence

• Plans, organizes, monitors, and controls all aspects of a project and ensures engagement, commitment, and risk management; provides ongoing communications support on project status to ensure senior management alignment
• Manages the concept and product ideation processes and develops a pipeline of new concepts
• Leads others to create a range of dishes from a creative brief; manages all or a portion of the stage gate process
• Explores new and exciting culinary techniques and presentations; seeks and leverages inspiration from industry trends, ethnic and international cuisine, and searches for opportunities to infuse creativity into the development process; evolves cooking styles
• Ensures the consistent application of culinary development standards, processes and established methodologies
• Oversees testing, refining, evaluation, and implementation of preparation techniques, processes, or tools for existing or new product development
• Oversees the documentation of recipes and collaborates with Culinary Operations in the translation of the development recipes to simplify steps for executional replication
• Executes the preparation and plating of food for marketing communications
• Manages all food related functions for the culinary center and off-premise events

REQUIRED TECHNICAL SKILLS:

• Culinary Skill and Technique: Demonstrates competence in the fundamentals of cooking and professional terminology
• Culinary Creation and Development: Leverages culinary knowledge and insights to generate compelling food concepts
• Culinary Operations: Demonstrates the ability to operationalize culinary concepts
• Training Design and Deployment: Demonstrates the capability to design and deploy food or beverage training to restaurant operations
• Project Management: Demonstrates the capability to achieve desired outcomes on time and within budget through the application of project management principles and techniques
• Restaurant Operations and Systems: Displays knowledge of and empathy for operations priorities, systems, methods and processes
• Consumer Knowledge: Demonstrates knowledge of current consumer and industry behaviors, trends, attitudes, preferences, and needs
• Brand Activation: Demonstrates an understanding and capability in executing the brand strategy

REQUIRED EDUCATION:

• High school diploma or equivalent required
• Culinary Arts degree or the equivalent experience preferred

OTHER KEY QUALIFICATIONS:

• Passion for food and hospitality
• Some travel required

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent Culinary Arts degree preferred
• 8+ years progressively responsible in culinary development preferred
• 3+ years progressively responsible experience leading a culinary team preferred
• Experience developing vendor relationships preferred
• Demonstrated ability to drive innovation into the product development process preferred
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach and hold team members accountable for performance preferred
• Or, equivalent combination of education, training and experience