Questions to Ask a Chef in an Interview
For restaurant owners and managers hiring a head or executive chef. Twenty questions on menu writing and dish costing, prep and ordering, food safety and allergens, holding a service together under pressure, training and staff turnover, and which references are worth calling.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Walk me through the last menu you wrote. Why those dishes?
Why ask it
A chef who can say what each dish costs, what it does for the section and why it earned its place is thinking commercially. One who only talks about the food they love is telling you the menu was written for themselves rather than for the room.
What was your food cost running at, and how did you know?
Why ask it
Anyone who has run a kitchen against a P&L gives a percentage without pausing and can say where the figure came from. A number with no source behind it means somebody else was watching cost, and you will need that person here too.
What is the biggest number of covers you have cooked in a night, and what broke first?
Why ask it
The volume matters less than the answer to the second half. Useful replies name the actual constraint, pass space, one fryer, the dishwasher, prep, and what they did about it. That is the difference between having done big numbers and having understood them.
Which station would you take yourself on a bad night?
Why ask it
Chefs default to the section they came up on. It tells you where the head chef will physically be standing during your worst service, and therefore which part of the kitchen gets the least supervision when it matters.
Tell me about a dish you loved that you had to take off. Why did it go?
Why ask it
The reason it went, cost, waste, prep time, poor sales, shows what they let win an argument against their own taste. A chef who cannot name one has either never run a menu commercially or has never conceded anything.
How do you write a prep list, and who owns it?
Why ask it
Prep is where kitchens quietly fall apart. Look for who writes it, when it goes up and how it gets checked off. A chef who keeps the prep list in their head runs a kitchen that stops working properly on their days off.
What does your ordering week look like: which days, which suppliers, who signs off the invoices?
Why ask it
This maps how organised the back of house will be. Named delivery days, a stock count before the order goes in, and someone checking the invoice against what actually arrived are the difference between managing cost and discovering it at month end.
Where does waste actually come from in a kitchen like this one?
Why ask it
Weak answers say portion control and over-ordering. Strong ones get specific to the operation: trim off whole fish, unsold specials, prep for covers that never came, staff food, and plates that die on a hot pass during a quiet lunch.
It is Saturday night and a ticket comes in marked severe nut allergy. What happens?
Why ask it
You want a procedure, not reassurance. Listen for who takes the order, how the ticket is marked, whether prep and equipment get separated, and who carries the plate to the table. A chef who says they would simply be careful has not worked anywhere that took it seriously.
When was your last inspection, and what did they pull you up on?
Why ask it
Findings are normal and owning them is a good sign. What matters is whether they can name what was flagged and what changed afterwards. A claim of a perfect record every time usually means they were not the one dealing with it.
How do you train a commis who is fast but sloppy?
Why ask it
This is the most common problem in a young kitchen, so the answer should be concrete: hold them on one station, check every plate for a week, pair them with someone precise. Replies about attitude and passion mean they have never done the training themselves.
What do you do with someone who cooks well but poisons the section?
Why ask it
The answer shows what they tolerate in exchange for skill. Kitchens lose staff fastest under chefs who protect a strong cook with a bad manner, and you are the one who will be hiring the replacements.
How do you and the front of house talk during service, and who calls it when the kitchen is drowning?
Why ask it
Kitchen and floor fall out in every restaurant, so the mechanism is what counts: who puts a wait on, how it gets passed to the floor, who has final say. A chef who describes front of house as the problem is previewing your next twelve months.
Tell me about the worst service you have run. What changed afterwards?
Why ask it
Everyone has one. The value is in whether the fix was structural, a rewritten prep sheet, a dish changed, a station moved, an extra pair of hands on Fridays, or just a resolution to work harder. Working harder is not a fix.
Take a dish off our menu and cost it out loud for me.
Why ask it
Doing it in the room shows immediately whether they cost with yields and trim losses or simply add up what sits on the plate. More than any other question, this separates chefs who can hold a gross profit target from chefs who cannot.
How do you keep a dish identical on a night when you are not there?
Why ask it
Consistency is a systems answer: written recipes, weighed portions, a photo at the section, someone tasting the sauce at the start of every service. High standards and pride are not a method and will not survive your chef's day off.
What rota would you want, and what does that do to the wage percentage?
Why ask it
You are matching their expectations against your wage budget before either side commits. A chef who has never connected rota decisions to a labour percentage will build the schedule they want and hand you the cost afterwards.
What would you change here in your first month, and what would you leave alone?
Why ask it
The second half carries the weight. Anyone can list changes. Naming what already works shows they looked at your operation rather than arriving with a template, and it predicts how much of your current team survives.
How do you want me to tell you a dish is not selling and has to go?
Why ask it
This will happen, so the working relationship is what is being tested. Look for whether they want the sales mix and the margin, or whether the question lands as an insult. A chef who cannot lose that argument well is expensive to employ.
Who from your last kitchen can I call, and who will they say you are?
Why ask it
Ask for a sous or a commis they managed, not only the head chef above them. Reluctance to offer anyone from below is the single most useful signal in the interview, and the calls themselves will tell you more than anything said in the room.
Running a chef interview that tells you something
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Build a process, not just an interview
Talk first, cook second
Use the conversation to work out whether the numbers and the temperament fit, then get them in the kitchen. Hiring a chef on an interview alone is how restaurants end up replacing the role twice in a year.
Have your own figures to hand
Know your current food cost, wage percentage, average spend and busiest sessions before you sit down. Questions about cost only work if you can tell whether the answer is realistic for your site.
Decide what the job actually is
A head chef who writes menus, holds the GP and manages a brigade is a different hire from one who executes an existing menu reliably. Candidates who look weak against one version are often strong against the other.
The trial shift
- 1Put them on during a real service, not a quiet afternoon. How they behave when tickets stack is the whole point.
- 2Ask for one dish from your existing menu and one of their own, so you see execution and imagination separately.
- 3Watch the handover and the clean down. Chefs who leave a section clean and hand over clearly tend to be the ones who run a kitchen well.
- 4Note how your existing team responds to them. Your sous and your kitchen porter will form a view within an hour, and it is usually right.
- 5Pay them for the shift. It is the norm, it removes any argument about the arrangement, and refusing to tells candidates something about how you operate.
Agree the numbers before you offer
- The gross profit target and who is accountable when it slips.
- The wage budget, and whether they control the rota within it.
- Whether they have authority to change suppliers, and any spend limit on it.
- How often the menu changes, and who signs off a new dish and its price.
- Split of hours and days, and what the arrangement is when the kitchen is short.
- How performance gets reviewed, and against what: covers, GP, complaints, staff turnover.
Warning signs
- Every previous kitchen failed because of owners, front of house or the staff they were given.
- No numbers anywhere in the conversation, even when the question is directly about cost.
- Answers about allergens and cleaning that stay at the level of common sense.
- No one they managed is available as a reference.
- A first month plan that involves replacing most of your team before they have worked a full week.
- Reluctance to do a paid trial in front of your existing brigade.
Expect to be interviewed back
A chef worth hiring will want to know your covers, your average spend, your GP target, how much of the wage bill is theirs to control, and how much say you intend to keep over the menu. Answering those questions straight, including the awkward ones about how the site is trading, is what makes a strong candidate take the job. Vagueness on your side tends to lose exactly the people you were hoping for.