Chef Resume Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a sous chef with about ten years in kitchens who started as a prep cook, worked the line at a high-volume hotel restaurant, ran a station as chef de partie and is now sous chef at an independent restaurant. The name, restaurants and school are made up. Keep the structure and swap in your own kitchens, covers and numbers.

Chef hiring is done by chefs and owners, not HR, and many of them read a resume in the 30 seconds between lunch and prep. Four things carry the decision.

• Where you have cooked. Cuisine, restaurant type (fine dining, hotel, casual, catering, institutional), seats and covers a night. Fine dining and 400-cover banquet kitchens are different jobs and both are valuable; the chef wants to know which you have done.
• Your rank and station. Prep, line, chef de partie (which station), sous, executive. Say what you actually ran. Chefs check references inside the industry, and kitchens are small.
• Numbers that show you understand the business. Food cost, labor cost, waste, ordering budget, covers per cook. A line cook does not need these; a sous chef or above does.
• Food safety. A current ServSafe Manager or state food manager certification is required by law for a person in charge in most jurisdictions, and a clean inspection record proves you run a clean kitchen.

“I want to see covers, stations and how long they stayed. Someone who did two years on sauté in a 300-cover hotel kitchen can work my line. Someone whose resume says 'passionate about food' and lists six kitchens in three years cannot, and I know why they left each one.”

Three or four lines under your name: rank and years, the kind of kitchens, covers and brigade size, one or two business numbers, and your certification. Below are versions for the ranks people search for most.

Most chef resumes read like a menu of duties: "prepared dishes, maintained cleanliness, assisted the head chef." The chef hiring you knows the duties. What they want is the scale and the result. Eight rewrites below use real kitchen work.

A skills list on a chef resume should read like an inventory of what you can do, not a personality profile. Keep 10–14 items, match the posting's words, and let your rank set the mix of technique and management.

Cooking and technique (all ranks):

• Stations you have run: sauté, grill, garde manger, fry, pantry, pastry, expediting
• Knife skills, butchery and fish fabrication
• Classical technique: stocks, mother sauces, braising, roasting, emulsions
• Cuisines you cook at a professional level (name them; do not list six)
• Baking and pastry: bread, laminated doughs, plated desserts, chocolate, sugar work
• Volume: covers per night, banquet size, à la carte vs. set menu
• Dietary and allergen cooking (gluten-free, vegan, allergen protocols)

Kitchen management (sous chef and above):

• Menu development and recipe costing
• Food cost, labor cost and P&L basics
• Ordering, inventory and vendor management (name the software: MarketMan, BlueCart, xtraCHEF, Restaurant365)
• Scheduling and training a brigade (give the size)
• HACCP plans, health inspections and temperature logs
• Kitchen openings, equipment purchasing and layout
• POS and kitchen display systems: Toast, Square, Aloha, Micros

Leave out "passion for food" and "works well under pressure." Every cook says it. Covers per night and ticket times prove the pressure part.

Cooking has no license, but food safety does, and a few credentials carry weight. List them in their own section with the issuer and expiration year.

• Food safety: most states and counties require a certified food protection manager on staff, and many require a food handler card for every cook. ServSafe (National Restaurant Association) is the most recognized; several states accept other ANSI-accredited programs and some (California, Texas, Illinois, among others) have their own required cards. List the exact certificate and its expiration date.
• ServSafe Allergens or a state allergen certificate: required in some states for a manager on duty and useful everywhere.
• American Culinary Federation (ACF) certifications: Certified Sous Chef (CSC), Certified Chef de Cuisine (CCC), Certified Executive Chef (CEC), Certified Executive Pastry Chef (CEPC), Certified Master Chef (CMC). Not required, but recognized in hotels, clubs and institutional kitchens.
• Culinary school: an associate degree or diploma from a culinary program helps at the entry level and for hotel and club jobs. After five years, the kitchens you have worked in matter more.
• Stages, competitions and press: a stage (unpaid trial shift or short placement) at a notable restaurant, a competition medal or a menu that was reviewed can go in a short "Additional" section. Keep it to facts.

Outside the US the document is called a CV, and UK and European chefs often list a restaurant's stars or guide entries. In the US, name the restaurant type, seats and covers instead.

Kitchens hire prep cooks and dishwashers every week and promote from inside, which is how most chefs started. A first kitchen resume needs to show that you can work fast and clean, take direction, stand for ten hours and learn. Culinary school helps but is not required.

1. 1Header title: "Prep Cook," "Line Cook" or "Culinary Graduate," whatever matches the posting. Do not write "Chef" until a kitchen has called you one.
2. 2Two-line objective: what you can already do (knife skills, a cuisine you cook at home at volume, a culinary program) and the hours you can work (nights, weekends, holidays).
3. 3Get a food handler card before you apply. It costs little, takes two hours online and appears on most postings.
4. 4List culinary school with the techniques covered and the kitchens or externships included. A 12-week externship at a real restaurant is experience; write it as a job with covers and stations.
5. 5Any fast, physical, customer-facing job counts: dishwasher, fast food, barista, catering server, grocery deli. Give the volume and your attendance.
6. 6Home cooking counts only if it was at volume or for others: cooking for a family of eight, a church supper for 100, a pop-up or farmers-market stall. Give numbers.
7. 7One page, PDF. Ask for a stage (trial shift) in your cover note; chefs hire off a stage more than off a resume.

• One page for cooks and sous chefs. Two pages only for executive chefs with openings, multiple outlets or a long list of properties.
• Order: header with rank, summary, experience, skills, certifications, education. Experience goes above skills here because chefs read the kitchens first.
• For each kitchen give the restaurant type, seats or covers and your station or rank in the first bullet or the company line. "Sauté, 300 covers" says more than any adjective.
• Reverse chronological with months. Chefs know the industry moves, but six kitchens in three years still needs a reason (seasonal, opening team, relocation). A one-line note is fine.
• Stages and short placements go in a separate line or section so they do not look like jobs you left after two weeks.
• No photo, no date of birth. A link to a food Instagram or portfolio is fine if the photos are of your food and it is current.

Send a PDF. The cvplex chef template used in the sample puts skills and certifications beside the experience, reads well on a phone between services and still parses in the applicant tracking systems hotel groups use.

Independent restaurants read resumes by hand. Hotel groups, restaurant groups, cruise lines and institutional food service use applicant tracking software that matches the posting's words. When applying to those, mirror the posting.

• Titles as posted: line cook, cook II, chef de partie, sous chef, junior sous chef, executive sous chef, chef de cuisine, executive chef, pastry chef, banquet chef
• Kitchen words: covers, à la carte, banquet, brigade, mise en place, expediting, recipe costing, food cost, labor cost, inventory, ordering
• Safety words: ServSafe, food handler, HACCP, allergen, health inspection, temperature logs
• Cuisine and technique words the posting uses (French, Italian, Japanese, farm-to-table, butchery, pastry, bread)
• Software: Toast, Micros, Aloha, MarketMan, Restaurant365, BirchStreet (hotels)