Chinese restaurant Kitchen positions
Tara Moore/ Taxi/ Getty Images Depending on the size and theme of your restaurant, you may have just one cook running the show, or you may have several cooks working together. The term chef and cook are often used interchangeably. Originally a chef was a professionally trained individual. Today, it is often applied to anyone who works in a kitchen. Here is a breakdown of the various cooking positions that can be found in one restaurant kitchen.
Executive Chef
This is the head chef. He is the guy (or girl) who creates the specials, orders the foods, and works as the general manager of the kitchen. He probably does the scheduling, the hiring and the firing of kitchen staff, as well. This position is normally filled by someone with several years cooking experience and restaurant management experience.
Sous Chef
The executive chef’s assistant and next in charge is a sous chef. It is the job of the sous chef to pick up the slack when the executive chef has a day off or is on vacation. They may need to fill in on the line, or work a particular station on busy nights. Many smaller restaurants don’t keep a sous chef on staff.
Expeditor
This is a non-cooking role on the kitchen line. An expediter is a person in charge of organizing orders by table, and garnishing the dishes before the server takes them out to the dining room. An expeditor is only needed when it is really busy.
The person who acts as an expeditor should be very familiar with the menu, and know what the dishes should look like before being served to guests.
Line Cook
The most common title in the kitchen is that of line cook. Depending on your kitchen set up and your menu, you may have two or three line cooks or as many as seven or eight, or more.
• Sauté Chef- This person is in charge of anything cooked in a sauté pan. Usually it is the best cook on staff, behind the executive chef and sous chef.
• Grill Cook- This person takes care of all of the items on the char-grill or flattop grill, such as meats, chicken and fish.
