Executive Chef | Upscale Dining | Downtown Pittsburgh Location

Job Description

Job Description

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Executive Chef

Position Overview

The Executive Chef is the senior culinary leader accountable for the kitchen, culinary team, food quality, food cost, culinary labor, sanitation, training, consistency, and operational execution. The Executive Chef is responsible for executing company standards through four main quadrants: Build the Team, Revenue Growth, Manage the Business, and Operational Excellence. The Executive Chef must partner with the General Manager as one leadership team and ensure culinary execution protects the guest experience and drives repeat visits.

Core Accountability

The Executive Chef is accountable for the entire culinary operation. Food quality, kitchen culture, culinary staffing, training, food cost, labor, cleanliness, health inspections, prep discipline, line readiness, and execution all ladder back to the Executive Chef.

Key Responsibilities

1. Build the Team

• Recruit, interview, select, hire, onboard, train, and retain culinary talent.
• Develop Sous Chefs, culinary supervisors, trainers, prep leaders, cooks, and high-potential hourly team members.
• Ensure culinary onboarding, station certification, recipe training, and development expectations are completed on time.
• Create a kitchen culture built on respect, urgency, cleanliness, standards, teamwork, and ownership.
• Address poor performance quickly and professionally with proper coaching and documentation.

2. Revenue Growth

• Ensure every plate meets recipe, quality, temperature, portion, and presentation standards.
• Partner with the General Manager on sales-driving initiatives, feature execution, premium value strategy, and guest experience opportunities.
• Support private dining, wine dinners, holiday events, community events, and large-party execution through strong culinary planning.
• Train culinary and front-of-house leadership on product knowledge, feature execution, menu changes, and quality standards.
• Use guest feedback and food quality comments to identify opportunities to improve repeatability.

3. Manage the Business

• Own food cost performance and understand all drivers of culinary profitability.
• Manage actual versus theoretical food cost variance through recipe adherence, portion control, purchasing discipline, waste tracking, and inventory accuracy.
• Manage culinary labor through scheduling, productivity, cross-training, prep planning, and business flow analysis.
• Control purchasing to approved vendors, approved specifications, par levels, and business needs.
• Maintain equipment cleanliness and communicate repair and maintenance needs before they become operational failures.

4. Operational Excellence

• Lead daily culinary operations with urgency, standards, organization, and discipline.
• Conduct daily line checks, prep checks, station inspections, walk-throughs, and service readiness reviews.
• Maintain exceptional cleanliness and organization throughout the kitchen, dish area, storage areas, walk-ins, freezers, prep areas, and chef office.
• Execute all health, safety, sanitation, HACCP, allergen, and food handling standards.
• Address food quality issues immediately and identify root causes to prevent repeat issues.

Leadership Expectations

All leaders are expected to model key leadership traits daily. These include:

• Interdependence: Works collaboratively across departments and builds alignment instead of silos.
• Accountability: Owns results regardless of circumstances and addresses gaps quickly and directly while maintaining fairness and respect.
• Problem Solving: Identifies root causes, uses data, builds action plans, and follows through until results improve.
• Communication: Creates clarity, urgency, and alignment through consistent communication.
• Team Building: Develops people, coaches daily, and creates future leaders.
• Humility: Places the guest, team, and business ahead of ego, accepts feedback, and owns mistakes.
• Ownership Mentality: Operates the restaurant as if it were their own business and protects company assets.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of culinary leadership experience; upscale, fine dining, steakhouse, seafood, or polished full-service experience preferred.
• Proven ability to lead, train, and develop culinary teams and Sous Chefs.
• Strong food cost, labor, inventory, purchasing, waste control, and recipe execution knowledge.
• Experience with high-volume service, private dining, holiday execution, menu rollouts, and culinary training.
• Experience with inventory systems, back-office tools, prep systems, and scheduling preferred.
• ServSafe certification or equivalent food safety certification preferred.
• Ability to work nights, weekends, holidays, and peak business periods.

For immediate consideration, please contact [email protected] directly.