Lead Chef for High Growth, High End Catering Company & Venue

For consideration, please submit a resume/ cover letter describing your background, experience, availability, and anything else requested in the job posting to our staffing team: recruiting@bitecatering.net

Please note that the post may contain elements we ask you to include in your application - we consider those heavily as a mark of your detail-orientation and design thinking.

Please, no phone calls, and principals only (no recruiters/ staffing agencies)!

The Role

Bite Catering Couture is at a high growth inflection point, as we prepare to launch our newly renovated historic venue, 440 Elm (with max capacity of 1167). This adds a Top 5 historic venue to our existing off-premise focus on thoughtfully designed and beautifully presented events with highly tailored menus and service approach.

A lead chef helps us take all of this creative energy and turn it into a series of well-planned weeks with detailed recipes, individual prep plans, and reasonable/ predictable schedules that bring together the right mix of prep and event chefs. Unlike most other companies, our leads do not do this all on their own…we have a multiple lead model that allows for a rotation between executing weeks, planning weeks, and R&D/ large event weeks.

For this role, we’re looking for a Lead Chef applicant who loves taking on the challenges of rapid growth, loves developing people to handle increasing responsibilities, and loves breaking down problems on first principles to come up with the best answers for different contexts (driven by client needs, catering locations, and a differing mix of events at different scales every week).

As you might read between the lines, this is not a job for someone who aspires to be a desk chef or wants the control of an executive title. We’ve built a model that is intentionally focused on optimizing for creative and thematic events, which means we need a team of Lead Chefs who are excited to solve those problems every week.

Who We Are:

Bite Catering Couture is a woman chef-owned family business. Our off-premise catering division offers a highly-personalized service and we’re currently in the final stages of opening what will be a premier historic venue in the Arts District of beautiful downtown Long Beach (with a max capacity of 1167).

We're a company well-regarded both by the public and the catering industry, as you'll see from our high-quality reviews and our industry speaking engagements at conferences like Catersource, WeddingMBA, and the Special Event. We are regularly quoted in the press.

Our promise to our customers is that we produce events for them that are:

Designed Thoughtfully. Crafted Lovingly. Presented Beautifully!

In order to deliver on that promise, our internal culture is grounded in five core values:

1. Well-designed process
2. Transparency
3. Continuous improvement
4. Concise, written communication
5. Aspire to perfection

We value teamwork, curiosity, process, planning, and coaching over yelling and flying by the seat of our pants. We keep a collegial, respectful kitchen filled with self-motivated chefs.

We have a warm and welcoming environment where we enjoy our work while still getting the job done. Our passion is creating amazing food and we have a lot of fun doing it. We truly have a special team and want to meet people who fit our culture and work ethic.

Who Should Apply

We seek an ambitious, curious, and growth-oriented chef who is excited catering/ events, rapid growth, and solving the issues that arise when you combine the two.

We are looking for somebody will be excited about the opportunity to seek out and present ideas to execute a broad range of food, techniques, ingredients, equipment, scaled production, and approaches as befits a caterer constantly creating menus tailored to a variety of client needs and events.

What you will do

• Planning Week – Keep an up-to-date schedule and prep and event plan looking forward 6 weeks. Success is ensuring we have an ever-improving set of recipes that help shape the plan, reliable prep lists that produce the required elements and get each individual out on time. Maintain a bench of prep and event chefs who meet the growing demand across a range of capabilities.
• Execution Week – Run kitchen and prep according to your carefully crafted weekly and daily plan. Coach your team up to a high standard (and you model that standard well) - delivering exceptional food quality and presentation, adhering to our brand standards, and exceeding client expectations. Set your event teams up for success with high-quality, on-time food prepared to spec with clearly outlined finishing instructions and information around special dietary/allergen requirements.
• Large Event Sales | R&D Week – Act as main kitchen liaison for complex full-service proposals, custom menu and event support for upcoming large and complex events to ensure we are prepared at a high level of confidence and detail. Run tastings to a high level of bookings.
• Prep and Events: Fill in the remainder of your schedule with prep and event work (in coordination with the executing week chef) after you've completed your primary requirements and any projects for the week.
• Develop our Team: As a senior member of our kitchen team, you will work with the other leads to work on recruiting, development opportunities, and coaching to help us continually evaluate and improve our team of part-time and on-call chefs.

Requirements

• Proven experience in high quality off-premise catering operations - fine dining is appreciated but catering and fine dining/restaurant are two different animals. You need to have a solid understanding of how catering prep, planning and logistics work to run an efficient kitchen.
• Experience leading a team of full-time and seasonal/on-all team members, including training and setting of expectations.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, including experience communicating with executive leadership.
• Strong multitasking and prioritization skills; ability and desire to perform well in in fast-paced, highly creative, and constantly evolving environment.
• Flexibility to work evenings and weekends, as determined by business need and our calendar of events. Overtime is to be expected during busy periods.
• Must have a reliable method of transportation, valid drivers license and clean driving record (comfortable driving a cargo van).
• Must be able to lift 50 pounds continuously
• Fluent in English
• Able to use Microsoft Excel and kitchen software/ applications to write detailed recipes
• Culinary Degree from a notable institution with a proven record of high achievement (or exceptional base of culinary fundamentals)

You'll want a robust job (approx. 48-55 hours/wk) that typically span from our light-filled kitchen in West LA to events from the Valley down to Long Beach.

Base Hourly Rate: $27/hr

Total Estimated Pay: $75,000.00 - $90,000.00+ per year (Total pay varies and is a combination of base hourly, overtime, event bonuses, performance bonuses and health stipend)

Application:

To apply, email a resume and the answers to the following questions to recruiting@bitecatering.net with the title: "Lead Chef Application".

No agencies or recruiters please, principles only

Questions:

• What did you see in the job description that made you excited to apply for our position?
• How many years of cooking experience do you have?
• How many years of off premise catering experience do you have?
• Please provide a link to one or several dishes where you are proud of how they are presented
• Is the stated role and compensation appropriate for your level of experience?
• Problem solving is at the heart of this role. Please describe a complex problem you had to solve for. Please describe, in detail:

1. What was the problem you had to solve?
2. What made it challenging?
3. What options did you consider?
4. What option did you select and what did you have to do to get it to work?  
5. What was the result and how big of a change was it from what was there before? Please use a number.

Last Updated: Mar 20, 2024

Estimated Pay: Total Estimated Pay: $75,000.00 - $90,000.00+ per year (Total pay varies and is a combination of base hourly, overtime, event bonuses, performance bonuses and health stipend)

Location: Los Angeles, CA (near Culver City/ Palms)

Our Values