What Your Chef Should Actually Be Doing

 If your chef is talented, respected and well paid but your food cost is still a mess, this is for you. I see this problem most often when restaurant owners are not cooks. They hire a chef and assume that is what they need in the kitchen and solves everything. The chef then defines their own role and that is where control starts to slip. But no matter what your experience is in restaurants, your chef has a very specific set of responsibilities. Here is what your chef should actually be doing.

Talent does not equal accountability

A restaurant chef’s job is not just cooking great food or creating exciting specials. Those things matter but they are not the job.

The real job is owning systems.

That means recipes are followed exactly. Portions are consistent. Ordering is based on pars. Waste is tracked. Inventory is accurate. Training is repeatable.

If those things are not happening, food cost will always be out of control no matter how talented your chef is.

I want to be very clear here. This is not about micromanaging or killing creativity. It is about defining responsibility.

What happens when restaurant systems are ignored

When chefs are not held accountable for systems, food cost drifts. Margins shrink. Owners stop trusting the numbers. Resentment builds.

And here is the brutal truth every restaurant owner needs to hear.

If you cannot take a salary but your chef can, your restaurant is out of alignment.

That is not about cooking. That is about accountability.

Your role as the owner of the restaurant

You do not need to become a chef. You need to understand the role well enough to manage it.

When expectations are clear, food cost stabilizes. Systems get followed. Your restaurant starts working for you instead of against you.

That is when ownership becomes sustainable instead of exhausting.

Be sure to visit my YouTube channel for more helpful restaurant management video tips.