Chef Resume Example

Restaurant owners hire chefs on the kitchens they have run, the covers they have fed and the numbers they have kept under control. A chef resume needs cuisine, volume, food cost and team size in plain view, because those are the first questions in any interview for a sous chef or chef de cuisine.

The Sample resume below belongs to a chef de cuisine with seven years in professional kitchens, currently running a 120-seat Southern restaurant after moving up from line cook to sous chef. The bullets cover menu development, food and labor cost, inspections, staffing and results the owner cares about: covers, reviews and margins. Figures like these come straight from a chef's own reports and weekly inventory.

Fit the page to the kitchen. Fine dining wants technique, tasting menus and staging history; high-volume and hotel kitchens want systems, cost control and consistency across hundreds of plates. The hospitality hub lists front-of-house examples, and the operations manager example shows how kitchen leadership reads outside restaurants.

Updated . The person and employers in this Sample resume are fictional.

Chef sample resume

Tomas Whitaker

Chef de Cuisine, Southern and Coastal Cuisine

Charleston, SCtomas.whitaker@example.com(843) 555-0176

Summary

Chef de cuisine with seven years in professional kitchens, running a 120-seat restaurant that serves about 1,400 covers a week. Writes seasonal menus around local seafood and produce and holds food cost near 29 percent. Leads a kitchen of 14 cooks and dishwashers with low turnover and clean health inspections.

Experience

Chef de Cuisine, Tallow & Brine

– Present

Charleston, SC

  • Run daily kitchen operations for a 120-seat restaurant serving about 1,400 covers a week across dinner and weekend brunch.
  • Cut food cost from 33 to 29 percent in one year by building the menu around whole-fish butchery, daily specials from trim and weekly inventory counts.
  • Write four seasonal menus a year with the owner, sourcing from nine local farms and fishermen.
  • Hire, schedule and train a team of 14; two line cooks I trained have been promoted to sous chef.
Sous Chef, Hollis Street Bistro

–

Charleston, SC

  • Ran the line five nights a week for a 90-seat bistro, expediting up to 250 covers on weekend nights.
  • Wrote prep lists and ordering guides that reduced end-of-week waste and kept stations stocked through the rush.
  • Led the kitchen through three health inspections with top scores.

Education

A.A.S. in Culinary Arts

Palmetto Culinary Academy, Charleston, SC

Skills

  • Menu development
  • Food and labor cost control
  • Whole-animal and fish butchery
  • Sauces and stocks
  • Expediting
  • Inventory and ordering
  • Vendor and farm sourcing
  • Kitchen scheduling
  • Health code compliance
  • Allergen management
  • Team training
  • Recipe costing in Excel

Certifications

  • ServSafe Manager, National Restaurant Association,

Start yours from this example

Bring your own resume or start blank, then tailor it to each posting in about two minutes.

Use this example

Templates for the chef resume

All templates

How the resume changes with experience

The same chef resume, written at three levels: a summary and three bullets for each.

Entry level

Zero to two years, or a first role in the title

Culinary school graduate and line cook with two years on a busy grill station, fast, clean and ready to learn more stations.

  • Worked grill and sauté stations for a 150-cover dinner service.
  • Prepared sauces, dressings and proteins from the chef's recipes every morning.
  • Kept a station that passed every walk-through by the sous chef.

Mid level

Three to seven years, owns a process or a workload

Sous chef with four years of experience running the line, managing prep and ordering, and stepping in for the chef on days off.

  • Expedite service for up to 200 covers a night.
  • Place orders with five vendors and track weekly inventory.
  • Train new cooks on every station of the line.

Senior

Eight years or more, leads people, budgets or programs

Executive chef with fifteen years in kitchens, leading several outlets, menus and budgets for a restaurant group or hotel.

  • Oversee three kitchens with a combined staff of 45 and a single purchasing program.
  • Set food cost targets for each outlet and review margins weekly with the general managers.
  • Opened a new restaurant for the group, from menu and hiring to the first month of service.

Skills to put on the chef resume

Hard skills

Menu development and costing
Owners want menus that sell and make money, so show that you price dishes, not only design them.
Food cost and inventory control
Food cost is one of the biggest numbers in a restaurant, and a chef who lowers it is easy to justify hiring.
Running a line and expediting
Service is where reputations are made, and interviewers want to know how many covers you can handle cleanly.
Butchery and core techniques
In-house butchery and scratch cooking save money and raise quality, and many kitchens test them in a stage.
Food safety and sanitation
A failed inspection can close a restaurant, so a manager-level food safety certificate and clean records matter.
Scheduling and labor cost
Labor is the other big cost, and chefs who schedule well keep both the budget and the team healthy.

Soft skills

Leading a kitchen team
Kitchens have high turnover, and chefs who train and keep cooks are worth a great deal to an owner.
Calm under pressure
A full dining room and a missing cook test every chef, and owners want someone who keeps service steady.
Working with front of house
Good communication with servers and managers leads to fewer mistakes and better guest reviews.

Mistakes that cost chef interviews

  1. Listing dishes instead of results

    A menu description shows taste, not management. Add covers, food cost, labor, inspection scores and team size so an owner can see how you run a kitchen.

  2. Leaving out cuisine and style

    A chef from high-volume banquets and a chef from a tasting-menu restaurant are different hires. State the cuisine, service style and seat count for each kitchen.

  3. Hiding the path up the line

    Moving from line cook to sous chef to chef de cuisine shows growth and trust. Keep those promotions visible, even within one restaurant.

  4. No food safety certificate

    Many kitchens require a manager-level food safety certification. List it with the year, or say when you will complete it.

  5. Too many short stages without context

    Staging in well-known kitchens is valuable, but a long list crowds out your real jobs. Group stages in one short line and focus on the positions you held.

Questions about the chef resume

What should a chef put on a resume?

Kitchens you have worked in with their seat counts and cuisine, your role, covers per night or week, food and labor cost results, menus you wrote, team size and your food safety certification.

Do chefs need culinary school on their resume?

No. Many chefs learned on the line. List culinary school if you went, but your kitchen experience and results matter more to most owners.

How do I move from sous chef to head chef on my resume?

Show the head chef duties you already do: ordering, scheduling, menu input, cost control and running the kitchen on the chef's days off.

Should a chef include photos of food?

Not on the resume itself. Add a link to a simple portfolio or social profile if the posting asks, and bring photos to an interview or stage.

How long should a chef resume be?

One page for line cooks and sous chefs, up to two for executive chefs with several openings and outlets.

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