Executive Chef - Restaurants | Saudi Arabia

**Join a leading Saudi holding company operating a growing portfolio of restaurants and B2B catering services, delivering exceptional international cuisine.** The **Executive Chef** will lead the culinary function, ensuring operational excellence, consistent food quality, innovation, cost optimisation, and culinary governance across all restaurant and catering operations. The role requires a hands\-on culinary leader capable of building high\-performing kitchen teams, driving menu innovation, strengthening food safety standards, and supporting business growth in a dynamic, fast\-paced hospitality environment. **Key Accountabilities:** ------------------------- * Lead all culinary operations across restaurants, central production kitchens, and B2B catering projects, ensuring consistent delivery of high\-quality international cuisine. * Oversee menu planning, recipe development, food presentation standards, and product innovation while maintaining consistency across all outlets and catering operations. * Manage food production planning, kitchen operations, labour scheduling, inventory control, and procurement coordination to maximise operational efficiency. * Ensure full compliance with Saudi Food \& Drug Authority (SFDA) regulations, HACCP requirements, food safety standards, hygiene protocols, and company quality policies. * Monitor food cost, gross profit margins, waste control, portion management, and overall kitchen financial performance while maintaining premium quality standards. * Develop and standardise recipes, production procedures, kitchen SOPs, and quality assurance processes across all brands and catering operations. * Lead culinary planning and execution for large\-scale corporate, governmental, hospitality, and event catering projects, ensuring seamless service delivery and client satisfaction. * Drive continuous improvement initiatives in kitchen operations, production workflows, equipment utilisation, and culinary efficiency. * Demonstrate strong operational leadership by implementing best practices, optimising kitchen systems, and ensuring disciplined execution across all culinary teams. * Build, structure, and develop the culinary organisation, including kitchen staffing, succession planning, role alignment, performance management, and capability development. * Lead culinary transformation initiatives focused on operational excellence, innovation, scalability, and continuous improvement. * Establish scalable culinary systems and production standards suitable for a high\-growth restaurant and catering business. * Partner closely with executive management on business strategy, new concept development, expansion projects, customer experience, and profitability initiatives. * Manage supplier relationships, ingredient sourcing, product quality, and procurement collaboration to ensure consistency and cost efficiency. * Lead, mentor, coach, and inspire kitchen teams while building a culture of accountability, creativity, collaboration, and culinary excellence. * Support new restaurant openings, catering mobilizations, client presentations, menu tastings, operational audits, and business development initiatives. **Knowledge, Skills, and Experience:** -------------------------------------- * Degree or Diploma in Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management, or a related discipline. * Professional culinary certifications are highly preferred. * Minimum 8 years of progressive experience in senior culinary leadership roles. * Strong experience within restaurants, hospitality, catering, cloud kitchens, or large\-scale food service operations. * Proven expertise in international cuisines, high\-volume food production, banquet operations, and corporate or institutional catering. * Strong knowledge of food safety regulations, HACCP, SFDA requirements, hygiene standards, and quality assurance practices. * Experience operating within multi\-site restaurant groups, catering organisations, or high\-growth hospitality businesses. * Proven capability in developing kitchen structures, implementing operational standards, and leading culinary transformation initiatives. * Demonstrated success in building and restructuring kitchen operations while driving efficiency, consistency, and cost optimisation. * Strong leadership presence with the ability to motivate, mentor, and develop diverse culinary teams. * Excellent menu engineering, food costing, production planning, and operational problem\-solving skills. * Strong commercial awareness with the ability to balance culinary creativity, customer satisfaction, and business profitability. * Ability to perform under pressure, manage multiple operations simultaneously, and lead effectively within fast\-paced environments. * High attention to detail, execution excellence, organisational discipline, and commitment to delivering exceptional guest experiences.