Hiring the Right Executive Chef

Six years ago, during this hotel pre-opening, I was part of the team responsible for building an operation from the ground up.

Menus, systems, budgets, equipment, recruitment and people.

Looking back today, I realise that one of the most difficult decisions was never the menu.

It was choosing the right Executive Chef.

Finding a new Executive Chef is rarely a quick process.

Hotels can spend weeks reviewing applications, speaking with recruitment agencies, arranging interviews, checking references and comparing candidates.

Sometimes the search continues for months.

The position is important, the expectations are high, and everyone involved wants to make the right decision.

Then the new Executive Chef arrives.

A few weeks later, the first doubts begin.

The chef may be experienced. The CV may be excellent. The interview may have gone very well.

Still, something does not feel right.

Communication becomes difficult. Expectations are understood differently. The relationship with management is not developing as expected. The team does not respond in the way everyone had hoped.

Very quickly, people begin to realise that perhaps the hotel and the chef did not fully understand each other during the interview.

I have seen this happen more than once during my career.

It does not necessarily mean that the Executive Chef is not capable.

It also does not always mean that the hotel made a careless choice.

Sometimes a good chef and a good hotel are simply not the right fit for each other.

A CV can show experience, but not adaptation

A CV can tell you where a chef has worked.

It can show the size of the operation, the brands, the countries, the restaurants opened and the teams managed.

An interview can reveal confidence, technical knowledge, ideas and communication skills.

All of this matters.

But an Executive Chef does not enter an empty kitchen.

He or she enters an existing environment with its own history, management style, financial reality, hierarchy, team culture, guest profile and way of making decisions.

Every hotel operates differently.

In one property, the Executive Chef may have considerable freedom.

In another, every change may require several levels of approval.

One hotel may expect the chef to be highly visible with guests. Another may need someone focused mainly on systems, costs and internal operations.

A resort may require patience with logistics, imported ingredients, staff accommodation, weather and limited access to suppliers.

A city hotel may demand speed, commercial awareness and the ability to manage several outlets with very different identities.

A chef can be successful in one of these environments and struggle in another.

The question is therefore not only:

Is this a good Executive Chef?

The more useful question is:

Is this the right Executive Chef for this particular hotel?

Some things are difficult to explain during an interview

Interviews are naturally limited.

The hotel presents the property, the role and its expectations.

The candidate presents experience, achievements and ideas.

Both sides are trying to understand each other, but both are also presenting their best professional version.

This is normal.

The real relationship begins later.

It begins when the chef receives the first budget restriction.

When an important proposal is not approved.

When the team does not respond as expected.

When ownership, management and culinary operations have different priorities.

When the chef discovers that the authority imagined during the interview is different from the authority available in daily operations.

That is often when compatibility becomes visible.

Unfortunately, by then the hotel may already have invested considerable time and money in recruitment, relocation, visas, accommodation and onboarding.

The chef may also have left another position, moved country and reorganised an entire life.

A wrong appointment is costly for both sides.

Why another experienced chef may notice something different

After many years working as an Executive Chef in different countries, hotels, resorts and cultures, I have learned that the most revealing part of an interview is not always the answer itself.

Sometimes it is the way the candidate understands the question.

Sometimes it is what the candidate assumes without asking.

Sometimes it is the type of environment in which that person has previously succeeded.

A chef who has lived through these roles can often recognise situations that are difficult to identify from outside the profession.

We understand what it means to lead a brigade while responding to a General Manager, an owner, a corporate office, the finance department, guests and several outlet managers at the same time.

We know that running a kitchen is only one part of the job.

We also know how differently the same title can function from one hotel to another.

An Executive Chef who has spent years in highly structured international hotel groups may find a privately owned property unusually informal.

A chef accustomed to complete creative freedom may struggle in an operation driven by brand standards and financial controls.

Someone coming from a small luxury restaurant may be an excellent cook but may not enjoy managing large buffets, staff dining, banqueting, purchasing and multiple outlets.

None of these differences makes one chef better than another.

They simply help us understand where that chef is most likely to succeed.

This kind of judgment does not come only from studying recruitment.

It comes from having held the position.

From having moved between countries and cultures.

From having accepted jobs that turned out exactly as expected — and others that did not.

From learning, sometimes personally, which questions should have been asked before the contract was signed.

Recruitment should not become a performance

An Executive Chef interview should not be a competition to find the candidate with the most impressive vocabulary, the most ambitious ideas or the most prestigious hotels on the CV.

It should be an honest attempt to understand whether two professional realities can work together.

That requires clarity from the hotel as well.

The property must explain not only what it hopes to achieve, but also how it really operates.

What decisions will the Executive Chef control?

What will remain under management or ownership?

What condition is the existing brigade in?

Which problems are waiting for the new chef?

What budget is genuinely available?

Is the hotel looking for creativity, stability, restructuring, discipline, visibility, financial improvement or all of these at once?

The clearer these answers are, the easier it becomes to evaluate the right person.

Otherwise, the hotel may recruit for one role and expect another after arrival.

A second opinion cannot guarantee success

No external assessment can predict every future problem.

People change. Organisations change. Circumstances change.

A candidate may interview extremely well and perform differently once inside the operation.

Another may appear reserved during the interview but become an excellent and stable leader.

There are no guarantees.

But a second professional opinion can bring another perspective to the decision.

It can help identify areas that still need clarification.

It can compare the candidate’s previous environment with the reality of the new property.

It can raise questions that HR, management or ownership may not naturally ask because they have never personally worked as an Executive Chef.

This is not about replacing the recruitment process.

It is about strengthening it before everyone commits to a decision that will affect the hotel, the brigade and the chef for years.

The best chef is not always the right chef

Hotels often search for the strongest candidate available.

I understand why.

But the strongest candidate on paper is not always the person who will perform best inside that specific organisation.

Hospitality is made of relationships, expectations, timing and adaptation.

Technical competence is essential, but compatibility determines whether that competence can actually produce results.

After months of recruitment, nobody wants to discover within a few weeks that the problem was not talent.

The problem was that two sides had understood the same role in completely different ways.

Perhaps the final stage of hiring an Executive Chef should therefore include one more question:

Not only, can this person do the job?

But also, can this person succeed here?