Sous Chef and Chef de Partie – The Duke
About Riverford:
We’re mad about organic veg. It’s at the core of everything we do. We love to grow it, pack it into boxes and deliver it to customers’ doorsteps around the UK. This takes a lot of brilliant people, with a range of skills and knowledge.
Riverford began in 1986, with a few acres of veg, a wheelbarrow and a beaten up 2CV for deliveries. We’ve grown into a successful e-commerce business, with four farms, three packhouses, a fleet of vans and drivers, a wholesalers, butchery, organic restaurant and pub. We employ people across many areas including IT, Logistics, Sales, Human Resources , Finance and Marketing (and more besides).
Our culture and values set us apart from other businesses. Riverford is a friendly, informal place to work, with a passionate, entrepreneurial spirit. We’re committed to providing a fair deal for growers, customers and staff.
What you’ll be doing
Since opening its doors in 1998 our London based pub, The Duke of Cambridge has been hugely popular, serving its customers with organic food and drink made from responsibly sourced ingredients
At the Duke, we can offer you the opportunity to work in a creative environment with the best seasonal organic vegetables and fruit available. You’ll be cooking to bring out the best in our ingredients on our delicious veg centric menu. We prepare from scratch here with veg prep fishmongery, bread making and butchery being part and parcel of what we do.
We aim to nurture cooking skills and develop team members to bring out their best qualities so we expect you to be able to work in an organised way and help to make sure your team can do the same. Alongside the core team there will be the opportunity to work with apprentices and work experience candidates, and at college demonstrations and workshops to bring Riverford and its message to life.
As part of the management team you’ll be need a to be able to stop, look and be critical of what we do; so we can continuously improve, grow and help to find solutions and build plans to reach our goals.
And of course a visit to Riverford in Buckfastleigh, Devon is an essential part of your induction when you join us so you can see our real farm to fork credentials first hand.
This is a permanent role with a minimum of 40 hours a week over 5 days Shifts are from 9am – 4.00pm or 4.00pm – 11.00pm with double shifts being both on the same day (with reasonable variations as required). Based at 30 St Peter's St, Islington, London N1 8JT
Your Responsibilities:
• Assisting with daily Assisting with daily and responsible for managing the kitchen area in the Head Chef’s absence, including the implementation of our food hygiene and health and safety policy and the supervision and development of staff, including Front of House where appropriate, and remaining until the end of the shift.
• Managing the cleaning and organisation of kitchen, prep, delivery, BOH, fridges and stockholding areas and that all food is stored appropriately.
• Ensuring the kitchen is focused and set for and throughout service, that food is sent in good time and effectively communicating daily with the management team any availability issues, including having the menu ready on time.
• Maintaining genuine excellence as the standard, working with recipes in the section manuals and adding to these with the Head chef, ensuring all food prepared is done so to recipe to maintain the style of food, also including the listing of all allergens and adhering to Soil Association guidelines.
• Ordering and Stock Take duties including maintaining an up to date market and stock list.
• Supervising food deliveries, their checking, recording, decanting and safe storage (and returning or reporting).
• Enforcing practice of stock rotation, control and labelling of food as a daily standard, to ensure our compliance with food safety regulations.
• Although we like to keep rules to a minimum please do ensure that you familiarise yourself with our terms and conditions of employment.
Skills and experience:
Extensive professional and catering experience at supervisory level in a similar establishment is essential. You must have the experience to step back and see the bigger picture. You need to work well both independently and under pressure, be calm, measured and able to find solutions to problems and think strategically.
Personal qualities:
Energetic and dynamic, a good team player and a good sense of organisation. Flexibility in working hours, availability is essential at evenings and weekends. Must be willing to share your passion for food. We also expect excellent personal presentation.
Benefits:
Riverford is a beautiful place to work, with lots of great people – and other benefits too. We offer 31 days’ holiday (including bank holidays), a generous company pension scheme and an annual profit share. We love food and hope you do too, so we give staff 25% off everything we sell on our website; working organic breakfasts and lunches in the Duke; and free organic fruit and veg. There are also many social events for staff, with two big parties a year.