Questions to Ask a Cook in an Interview
Interview questions for hiring a line cook, written for the chef or owner doing the hiring. They cover station strength, service volume, food safety, allergen handling and availability, with notes on running a paid trial shift.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What station are you strongest on, and which one would you rather not work?
Why ask it
Strong cooks answer both halves without hedging. A candidate who claims every station equally is usually protecting a weakness you will discover on a Friday night instead of today.
Where have you cooked, and what was the cover count on a busy night?
Why ask it
Covers per service calibrates their experience better than a restaurant's reputation does. Someone from a forty cover room may be excellent but will feel the volume of a two hundred cover service.
Walk me through your prep list on a normal day. What do you start with?
Why ask it
Prep order is the clearest window into how someone thinks: stocks and long cooks first, garnishes last. A candidate who lists tasks in no particular order tends to run behind on the line.
How do you like your mise en place set up before service?
Why ask it
Mise setups are personal and very specific, so a real answer arrives quickly and in detail. Hesitation suggests they have been handed a prepped station rather than building their own.
What happens on your station when four tickets land at once and one is an allergy order?
Why ask it
The allergy ticket is the tell. You want to hear it pulled out of the flow and handled separately, with clean equipment, not folded into the batch to save time.
Tell me about a service that fell apart. What did you do?
Why ask it
Every cook has had one. Listen for what they did, such as calling expo, dropping a course or asking for help, rather than an account of whose fault it was.
How do you handle it when a chef or expo corrects you mid service?
Why ask it
Correction during service is constant and impersonal, and cooks who take it as an insult make the whole line slower. Ask what the last correction they got was actually about.
What temperature do you cook chicken to, and how do you check it?
Why ask it
A basic food safety check where you are testing two things: the number, and whether they reach for a thermometer rather than judging by colour and cut.
Walk me through what you do with a hot pan of rice at the end of the night.
Why ask it
Cooling procedure separates cooks trained properly from cooks who picked it up loosely. Shallow pans, an ice bath or blast chiller, left uncovered until cool, labelled and dated are all good signs.
Someone tells you a guest has a shellfish allergy. What changes on your station?
Why ask it
You are listening for cross contact, not just the ingredient: clean pan, fresh utensils, changed gloves, telling the rest of the line. Cooks who only mention leaving the shrimp out have a gap worth training.
How do you label and date product, and who checked it in your last kitchen?
Why ask it
Labelling habits show whether their last kitchen ran on discipline or on memory. If nobody checked, expect to build the habit from scratch rather than inherit it.
What do you do when you run out of a component halfway through service?
Why ask it
A shortage mid service is a communication test. Good answers involve telling expo and the front of house immediately; worrying ones involve quietly substituting something and saying nothing.
How do you learn a new dish best: written down, tasted, or shown once?
Why ask it
People learn differently and it costs nothing to ask. It also tells you how much of your training time goes into writing recipes down versus standing there and demonstrating.
What is something you used to do wrong in a kitchen that someone corrected?
Why ask it
Invites a small, real admission and shows whether they are coachable. A candidate who cannot think of anything is either very new to the work or not paying much attention.
Have you trained anyone? How did you teach them your station?
Why ask it
Training ability decides whether this hire eventually becomes a lead cook. Ask what they did when the trainee kept making the same mistake, which is where most people stop teaching.
How do you keep waste down on your station without cutting portions?
Why ask it
Waste control on the line is trim use, rotation and accurate par levels. Watch for anyone whose first instinct is to shave portions, since that lands on the guest instead.
What is your availability, and how do you feel about doubles and weekend closes?
Why ask it
Better to hear a hard limit now than in week three. Availability is the single most common reason kitchen hires end early, ahead of skill and attitude combined.
How do you get to work, and what would a six in the morning start mean for you?
Why ask it
Practical and worth asking plainly. Transport and early starts cause more attendance problems in kitchens than motivation ever does, and both are fixable if you know in advance.
What kind of kitchen do you want to be working in two years from now?
Why ask it
Tells you whether this job is a step on their path or a stopgap. Either can work, but the answer should change how much time you put into training them.
What would your last chef say about you, good and bad?
Why ask it
Most people answer the second half honestly, and the flaw they name is usually the one you will end up managing. Claiming their chef would have nothing critical to say is not a straight answer.
Interviewing Line Cooks
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Run a trial shift, not just an interview
A conversation tells you how somebody talks about cooking. A paid two to four hour trial on the station you are hiring for tells you whether they can hold it. Put them on prep for an hour, then let them work part of a service alongside your strongest cook. Most kitchen hiring mistakes are avoidable at this step, and most of them happen because it was skipped.
What to watch during the trial
- Do they set up their own mise without being told what comes next?
- Do they clean as they go, or leave a station somebody else has to reset?
- Do they taste, and do they adjust seasoning without asking permission first?
- Do they speak up when they are behind, or go quiet and hope it resolves?
- How do they take a correction from your chef in front of other people?
- Do they wash their hands and change gloves without being reminded?
Cover the practical items before the culinary ones
- Availability, including weekends, doubles and closing shifts, is the most common reason a kitchen hire ends inside the first month.
- Confirm transport and how they would reach an early start or leave after a late close.
- State the pay, the schedule pattern and the trial arrangement plainly, in writing wherever you can.
- Ask about any food handler certification your jurisdiction requires, then check it rather than assume it.
Common mistakes
- Interviewing only about creativity. Most line work is repetition and consistency, and a candidate who only wants to develop dishes will be restless within a month.
- Skipping food safety questions because they feel too basic. Cooling, holding temperatures and allergen handling are where the real risk sits.
- Talking for most of the interview. If you spend twenty minutes describing the job, you learn nothing about the person in front of you.
- Hiring on resume names alone. A well known kitchen tells you where someone stood, not what they were trusted to do there.
- Not calling the last chef. Two minutes on reliability and cleanliness is worth more than another round of interviews.
Questions to expect back
- How many cooks are on the line during a busy service, and how many are on prep?
- How is the schedule posted, and how far ahead?
- Is there a staff meal, and how are breaks actually handled?
- How does overtime work, and who decides when it happens?
- Answer these directly. Evasiveness about hours and pay is the fastest way to lose a good cook to the restaurant down the street.