Executive Chef

Nestled on 9.5 wooded hectares in the west end of Ottawa, Aquatopia Conservatory is a gorgeous award-winning facility ranked by Wedding Bells magazine as one of Canada’s Top Ten Loveliest Venues, and the location for the Season 2 Finale for the internationally syndicated CTV reality TV series ‘Where To I Do?’, hosted by Canadian Designer Tommy Smythe.

Aquatopia’s unique contemporary architectural design, lush foliage, and aquatic features, create a year round indoor working ecosystem with a positive sense of place that make Aquatopia the ideal venue for weddings, private culinary events, parties, and celebrations.

Our team is a vibrant, diverse yet cohesive group who support, engage with one another, and thoroughly enjoy working together.

**Role Summary**:
The Aquatopia Executive Chef designs, coordinates, creates and executes all food & beverage elements for every Aquatopia event or catering job with one goal in mind: to ensure that every event is a success, delivering a high level of quality & service and exceeding client expectations. The Aquatopia Executive Chef must demonstrate a willingness to manage all creative, planning, production, and administrative requirements with exceptional attention to detail and highly developed organizational skills.

**Roles and Responsibilities**:

- _Sales & Marketing:_ working with our sales & marketing team to expand our current event production numbers and developing our off-site casual catering market share.
- _Manage Kitchen Staff:_ recruiting, scheduling, training, biannual job performance reviews, ensuring employee development and safety in the kitchen. Plan, direct, and supervise food preparation and cooking activities for a full service banqueting kitchen.
- _Menu Development:_ develop & update menus & recipes for all event styles produced at by Aquatopia. Meet with clients to discuss menu selections, and create custom menus when required.
- _Costing:_ collaborate with the Aquatopia food & beverage department team to cost out menus, and source food ingredients that keep food costs at an acceptable level to ensure acceptable profit margins are met.
- _Quality Control: _ensure food quality and consistency standards are met, cleanliness of food service facilities are maintained, staff are properly trained & qualified, and administrative systems are accurate and complete.
- _Food Presentation_: create unique decorative plating options & food displays that delight and entertain our clients in order to to set Aquatopia apart from other venues in the wedding & events industry.
- _Safety and Sanitation:_ maintain an impeccably clean kitchen, and food storage areas; oversee all repairs and scheduled maintenance of kitchen & food service equipment; work closely with Public Health Inspectors to ensure safety standards are met.
- _Food Purchasing_: coordinate planning, purchasing, receiving and inventory of all food & beverage supplies required for the production of events at Aquatopia.
- _Executive Chef Company Projects:_ Be available to assist or preform entirely any in house or off premise projects. Be sure to recognize and meet all deadlines and expectations of assignments.
- _Leadership:_ lead by example and through continuous coaching to maintain a positive & professional workplace culture, and actively encourage a positive environment for continuous improvement.
- _Human Resources_: source, interview, hire (and if required, terminate), and train all kitchen staff needed to fulfill the food & beverage service needs of every Aquatopia hosted event.
- _Finance & Administration:_ Prepare & implement departmental budgets with regard to costing, payroll, expenses & capital expenditures, to be reviewed quarterly with the Aquatopia Executive; provide post-event reporting to monitor and track results. Manage all operational administration related to food & beverage department.

**Skills/Competencies Qualifications**:

- Red Seal certification.
- A minimum of 10 years culinary experience with at least 5 years in a sous-chef capacity.
- Strong knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the kitchen.
- Must be an effective leader, manager, trainer, coach, and administrator with excellent organizational abilities and excellent interpersonal written & oral communication skills.
- Post secondary education and/or formal mentorship training in the culinary arts.
- Strong social media skills and computer proficiency on all Apple devices.
- Confident in a leadership capacity with the ability to act calmly during adverse and unexpected circumstances.
- Effective at problem solving and decision-making with good insight and judgment.
- Strong initiative and client service orientation.
- Ability to use sound judgment, discretion and professional integrity.
- High energy, positive, professional attitude, pride in work.
- Business minded with an appreciation for the financial aspects of the food industry.
- Available for evening and/or weekend work.
- Must be able to multi-tas