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Job Description: Sous Chef / Culinary Operations Lead
Position: Sous Chef / Culinary Operations Lead
Location: Centro Hotels – Pune, India
Reports To: General Manager / Hotel Manager
Department: Food & Beverage
Overview
Centro Hotels, part of SARC Hospitality, is looking for a strong and ambitious Sous Chef / Culinary Operations Lead to take ownership of daily kitchen operations across Centro Hotels, Chirp – our plant-forward café, and Bloom – our events and catering vertical.
This role is ideal for someone who is currently a Sous Chef, Senior CDP, Junior Sous Chef, or kitchen lead and is ready to take the next big step. We are looking for someone who can run a disciplined kitchen, maintain strong hygiene and food quality standards, train the team, control wastage, support menu development, and help build systems that can scale across future SARC Hospitality projects.
The right candidate should be hands-on, process-driven, quality-focused, and excited to work in a growing hospitality company.
Key Responsibilities1. Kitchen Leadership & Team Development
Lead day-to-day kitchen operations across hotel dining, café, and events requirements.
Supervise and guide CDPs, commis, helpers, and kitchen stewards to ensure smooth preparation and service.
Assist in recruitment, onboarding, training, duty allocation, and performance feedback for kitchen team members.
Build a positive kitchen culture based on discipline, teamwork, learning, cleanliness, and accountability.
Train junior chefs on recipes, prep standards, plating, hygiene, portioning, and service readiness.
Ensure the team follows SOPs, checklists, and daily preparation systems consistently.
2. Menu Development & Execution
Support the development and execution of menus for Centro Hotels, Chirp, and Bloom events.
Work on plant-forward, vegetarian, Indian, global café, breakfast, banquet, and event menus.
Assist in creating seasonal specials, café items, buffet dishes, live counters, and customized event menus.
Ensure all dishes are prepared as per approved recipes, portion sizes, taste profiles, and presentation standards.
Take guest feedback seriously and suggest improvements in dishes, menus, and kitchen processes.
Stay updated with food trends, café trends, banquet formats, and guest preferences.
3. Operational Excellence
Oversee daily mise en place, preparation, service flow, and kitchen closing procedures.
Ensure smooth coordination between kitchen, service, purchase, stores, and events teams.
Maintain consistency in taste, portioning, presentation, and speed of service.
Plan prep according to expected occupancy, café sales, event requirements, and buffet needs.
Monitor kitchen readiness before service and ensure gaps are corrected before they affect guests.
Manage inventory, stock rotation, ingredient usage, and wastage control.
Coordinate with purchase and vendors to ensure quality ingredients are available on time.
4. Recipe Standardization, SOPs & Process Control
Create and maintain standardized recipes for all key dishes.
Ensure correct portion control, prep methods, batch sizes, holding standards, and plating guides are followed.
Help create and implement kitchen SOPs, checklists, prep sheets, cleaning schedules, and production plans.
Build systems that improve consistency, reduce dependency on individual staff, and make training easier.
Ensure the kitchen is ready for future scaling across more SARC Hospitality outlets and properties.
5. Hygiene, Food Safety & Kitchen Discipline
Maintain high standards of cleanliness, hygiene, grooming, and food safety at all times.
Ensure proper storage, labelling, FIFO, temperature control, and expiry tracking.
Conduct regular checks for cleanliness of workstations, equipment, fridges, freezers, dry stores, and service areas.
Ensure compliance with FSSAI, health, safety, and hygiene standards.
Take responsibility for daily kitchen checklists, hygiene audits, and corrective action wherever required.
Maintain a clean, organized, and professional kitchen environment.
6. Cost Control & Administrative Responsibilities
Assist in controlling food cost, wastage, pilferage, and overproduction.
Monitor portion sizes, yield, ingredient usage, and recipe costing.
Support budgeting, forecasting, and planning for food production, events, and café operations.
Maintain records related to prep, wastage, stock, staff meals, cleaning, and kitchen operations.
Work with the General Manager, Hotel Manager, and management team on promotions, menu pricing, and revenue opportunities.
Support operational decisions that improve profitability without compromising food quality.
Qualifications & Experience
Degree or diploma in Culinary Arts, Hotel Management, or a related field preferred.
Minimum 5–8 years of culinary experience.
At least 1–2 years of experience in a leadership or supervisory kitchen role preferred.
Experience in hotels, cafés, restaurants, banquets, cloud kitchens, or events-driven operations will be valuable.
Strong knowledge of Indian, café-style, breakfast, vegetarian, global, and banquet food preferred.
Interest or experience in plant-forward, healthy, vegan, or modern café food will be an added advantage.
Good understanding of hygiene, kitchen systems, inventory, food costing, and team management.
Ability to train and manage junior kitchen staff.
Good communication skills and ability to coordinate with service, stores, purchase, and management teams.
Key Attributes
Hands-On Leadership: Willing to cook, supervise, train, check, correct, and lead from the front.
Process-Oriented: Strong focus on SOPs, recipes, hygiene, checklists, and consistency.
Quality Focused: High standards for taste, presentation, cleanliness, and guest experience.
Disciplined & Accountable: Takes ownership of daily kitchen readiness and team performance.
Creative but Practical: Can suggest new ideas while understanding cost, prep time, team skill, and guest demand.
Calm Under Pressure: Able to handle busy services, events, last-minute requirements, and operational challenges.
Growth Mindset: Excited to grow with a young hospitality company building scalable food systems.
Why Join Us?
Centro Hotels and SARC Hospitality offer a growing work environment where chefs are encouraged to take ownership, improve systems, and build their careers.
This is a strong opportunity for a chef who wants to move beyond only cooking and become involved in kitchen leadership, menu development, team training, hygiene systems, food cost control, and scalable hospitality operations.
- You will work across a boutique hotel, a plant-forward café, and an events vertical — giving you exposure to multiple formats and a clear path for professional growth.
Click on Apply to know more.