Director of Culinary Development

Company: Local Kitchens
Location: Los Angeles
Posted on: May 28, 2023

Job Description:

About Us:Local Kitchens helps the best local restaurants expand to new cities with our network of micro food halls. We are helping the $900bn restaurant industry go digital while bringing high-quality food options to families in every neighborhood. Today, we are operating in the SF Bay Area and rapidly expanding throughout California in 2022.Our team was on the founding team at DoorDash and we are well-capitalized by tier 1 venture capital investors and angels like David Novak (CEO/Founder of Yum Brands), Tony Xu (CEO of DoorDash), and Jack Dorsey (CEO of Square/Twitter). Read more about us in , , and in the .About the Role:Local Kitchens is seeking a creative and relentless Director of Culinary Development to take the lead in onboarding new Brand Partners onto the Local Kitchens platform!This role will report to the Head of Culinary and work with our Partnerships team to develop exciting menus for new restaurant Brand Partners. The ideal candidate will bring their passion for food and relentless attitude in order to achieve an exceptionally high-quality food product that will delight both our guests and partners.Responsibilities:

• Buildout the Kitchen Development department, assemble an exceptional team, and drive results
• Collaborate in defining Local Kitchens and new brand partner menus
• Recipe test and develop procedures for execution of all partner dishes
• Collaborate with partners on optimal product and packaging of proprietary menu items
• Execute tasting sessions and development meetings
• Develop training procedures and assets for onboarding new brand partners
• Collaborate with the Quality team to train kitchen staff on new brand partners
• Ongoing recipe testing of current Brand Partners to ensure highest quality of execution
• Researching and testing equipment for increased culinary excellence
• Develop recipes and techniques for Partner Menu execution
• Onboard new Brand Partners with excellence in quality of execution
• Provide direct culinary support between Local Kitchens and Partner Culinary Teams
• Innovate on execution of Local Kitchens partner menus through development of recipes and testing equipmentResponsibilities:
  • 5-8 years of executive chef and/or R&D Chef
  • Prior experience with team building and people management
  • Ability/willingness to travel throughout Bay Area up to 50% of the time
  • Relentless - urgency to hit goals no matter what, scrappy, get a lot done
  • Creative + first-principles thinker - design a concept from scratch that has never been done - before- reinterpret how food can be executed at the highest quality and fastest way possible
  • Extremely details-oriented and organized
  • Customer obsession - use guest experience to guide every decisionNice to Have:
    • Ability to interact and manage client relationships
    • Understand of supply chain constraints
    • Experience with CPG, co-packers, and production facilities
    • Knowledge of a mix of cuisines and culinary techniquesCulture:
      • Guest love: Local Kitchens exists to make guests happy. We start with "what would the guest want?" and work backwards. Support Center works to serve our kitchen teams, so that they can take care of our guests.
      • First principles thinking: We keep asking "why" like a 4-year old and never accept the status quo. We are truth seekers. We reason from fundamental truths in order to invent new ways to delight guests.
      • Operate at the lowest level of detail: We solve problems at the lowest level of detail e.g. by going to the kitchen. We measure everything and win arguments with data. We don't use sloppy thinking.
      • Relentless: We outwork everyone, it's our most controllable competitive advantage. We don't get knocked down when things are tough.
      • Drive for excellence: We are intrinsically motivated and strive to get 1% better every day.
      • No job beneath you: We do whatever is needed to help the team win. We don't understand the words "that's not my job". We always wash the dishes.
      • Play with joy: We bring joy to work every day. We support each other with contagious energy and optimism. We choose to have fun even when it feels like a grind.Salary ranges between $120,000 - 150,000. In addition to this, we offer meaningful equity ownership. This is an opportunity of a lifetime! Local Food Group is being built by some of the best in the world including the first few employees at DoorDash and Momofuku. We are backed by some of the best investors in the world. We have set out to work as hard as humanly possible, to work as a team and to serve local communities with the best selection and the best employment opportunities.If you're someone who is looking for a career defining opportunity, someone who is willing to grind it out day after day, someone who has enthusiasm for guests and partners - we want to hear from you.For more insight about Local Kitchens, visit our website and follow us on instagram .

Keywords: Local Kitchens, Los Angeles , Director of Culinary Development, Executive , Los Angeles, California