Head Chef Full time - 40 hours per week

Overview

Gonville & Caius College is one of the largest Colleges of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1348, it combines the best of Cambridge tradition with 21st century teaching and research. The College is often simply called ‘Caius’ (pronounced ‘Keys’) and its beautiful Old Courts are located right in the heart of Cambridge. The College is home to an academic community of around 780 undergraduate and postgraduate students, together with 110 Fellows, who are the academic staff, and almost 200 administrative and support staff.

The College provides catering to its members throughout the year and during vacations, when fewer students are resident, it provides catering to an important conference trade. Catering is required at both an everyday level and at the highest quality for fine dining for feasts.

The College is located on two main sites, Trinity Street in the centre of Cambridge and Harvey Court on West Road. Administrative, catering and residential accommodation is in the main College buildings in Trinity Street.  Harvey Court provides additional student accommodation and out of term conference business.

Caius’s kitchens are currently undergoing a major multimillion pound kitchen refurbishment scheduled to finish in the summer of 2020. This is an exciting time to be part of a new kitchen set up and also be at the forefront of further raising the standard of Caius food to the highest level.

Catering at Caius

Catering at Caius is diverse. For students on a typical day in term there is breakfast in the bar for a modest number, cafeteria lunch and two sittings of dinner in the main Hall each day during term-time for up to 200 with a 3-course meal. Fellows take their lunch in their own dining room every week day and then dine at High Table in Hall alongside the students’ second sitting.

During our kitchen refurbishment, Caius students dine at Harvey Court on West Road. There is cafeteria style dining for up to 300 plus a formal hall sitting for 94 capacity for students and Fellows.

Fellows take their lunch at the Main College in the Fellows dining room, this is provided from a temporary kitchen.

There are also private events in other rooms. These can be lunches or dinner for external clients, Fellows, or students. Lent term is particularly busy with students’ annual Faculty/subject dinners.

The College has a regular calendar of formal ‘feasts’ which range from welcome dinners for new students, farewell dinners for graduating students and by-invitation feasts for major donors to the College and other visiting members of the University and these are of the highest quality.

Vacation creates the added opportunity to bring in residential conferences to enhance income to the College. We are in a split site and make use of Harvey Court and the Stephen Hawking building in West Road, as well as the Old Courts.

The Role

The College is seeking to recruit an exceptional Head Chef to be responsible for coordinating and overseeing the kitchen operation, and leading a team of chefs to achieve the highest possible standards of dining for our students, Fellows, staff and conference guests. 

The successful candidate will have a proven track record in delivery excellent standards of cuisine and have a passion and flair for delivering and presenting food at the highest possible level. You will be experienced in the delivery of both modern and classical presentation whist making the best use of fresh, seasonal ingredients. You should be experienced in both stock control and budget management and be both a problem solver and great communicator. The full Job Description for the position can be found here.

This is a full-time role, currently 40 hours per week and is responsible to the Director of Catering. The ability and willingness to adopt a flexible approach to working hours, including evenings and weekends is expected, and you may be required to work additional hours from time to time in order to fulfil the requirements of the role and the needs of the College.

The salary for the full time position is £41,462 per annum depending on proven ability. In addition the College offers excellent benefits including automatic enrolment into a defined benefit pension scheme, 33 days annual holiday (including Public Holidays), meals on duty and a medical cashback scheme which gets you money back on prescriptions, optical and dental treatments, and discounts through shops, cinemas and utility providers, amongst others.

To Apply

Please complete an application form and equal opportunities form and return these, along with a current CV to, the HR Department by email careers@cai.cam.ac.uk, or at Gonville and Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TA. 

Closing Date

The closing date for applications is 12 noon GMT on Monday 27 January 2020. Interviews will be held by arrangement.