The Museum of Making has completed a five-year £17.5m programme on the site of the world’s first factory. Celebrating the area’s rich history of innovation, the Museum of Making is a contemporary space telling Derby’s 300-year history of making to inspire new creativity. A variety of galleries and exclusive events spaces as well as a bustling fresh-food café are available to create a high standard, expectation-exceeding guest experience, so we need a talented kitchen brigade to help make that happen!

The Role

We are seeking an enthusiastic and passionate Chef De Partie to join our brigade of chefs, based at the Museum of Making. As a Chef De Partie, you will be entrusted to manage a section of our fresh food kitchen, working with high quality and locally sourced produce to create dishes inspired by our Derbyshire heritage within a busy fresh food café / restaurant. As well as operating as a café, we also host events alongside during the day, so our kitchen caters buffets for any numbers from 10-200 people, and we aim to never stop café service alongside.

We operate as a busy café and corporate venue by day and transform to a unique events venue by night, hosting gala dinners, awards ceremonies, weddings and special events from small groups to large numbers of 120+ guests, and our diary is forever growing with new enquiries! Specific duties will include anything from collecting and preparing fresh fish from our local market, helping to manage and organise stock, rotating from different sections around the kitchen and managing a specific area during a busy café and corporate service. Derby Museums is registered with The Hospitality Charter, meaning we share a passion for breaking the stigma on hospitality not being an amazing place to work, we strive to offer an excellent work/ life balance and believe in fair working hours for all.

The Person

You will have a very strong eye for detail and a good understanding of what it takes to balance and prioritise multiple responsibilities in a busy kitchen and events venue. Our chefs need to be organised and well structured. You must have experience of working in a fresh food kitchen at any level, and a passion for learning new recipes and experimenting with new ideas, you will also be a good team player who enjoys the pressures of a busy workplace. We love to develop our team, so we will offer you all compliance training as standard and we are happy to discuss development in any areas of the kitchen. Two years of experience as a Commis Chef or Junior Chef de Partie is preferable, but not essential.

The Place

Derby Museums is a charitable trust which manages three museums and cares for collections of cultural heritage on behalf of Derby City Council. This includes the finest collection of work by the 18th century British artist Joseph Wright of Derby and extensive collections of natural science, world cultures, archaeology and making.

Derby is a city with a heart, in the heart of England. It’s a friendly, prosperous but affordable place on the edge of the beautiful Peak District and has great ambitions to place culture at the heart of its future prosperity.

Hours: 0 – 37 hours per week contract (weekly rota basis, as and when required)

Salary: £21,542 pro rata (£11.17 per hour)

Contract Type: Casual contract

Employee Benefits: 20 days (pro rata) + bank holidays (if not working), fantastic pension, Christmas close-down, all uniform provided, mileage allowance payable on authorised business travel.

Applications

If you believe you are the person we are looking for, please read the job description and person specification then please send your CV* and covering email to info@derbymuseums.org quoting the reference number DM/JP/CDP02.

Closing date: We are always on the lookout for chefs to add to our casual roster, and this advert will be left open on a rolling basis.

Interviews will be held at the Museum of Making, Silk Mill Lane, Derby DE1 3AF.

*Please ensure that your CV is sent to us in Word format or as a PDF