Sous Chef (Chinese Cuisine)

The Sous Chef is responsible for leading the Chinese and Hong Kong cuisine section, ensuring the highest standards of food quality, consistency, hygiene, productivity, and operational excellence. As Cathay's culinary subject matter expert, the role establishes and governs culinary standards, recipes, and quality benchmarks across the global catering network, while providing technical guidance, menu development support, and hands-on assistance to outstation catering units to ensure alignment with Cathay's culinary vision and service standards.

Responsibilities:

Culinary Leadership & Quality Management
• Lead and manage the assigned culinary section, ensuring high standards of food quality, consistency, presentation, hygiene, and operational efficiency.
• Develop and maintain culinary standards, recipes, production procedures, and product specifications.
• Conduct regular quality checks, tastings, and inspections to ensure compliance with established standards.
• Monitor product quality, investigate customer feedback and complaints, and implement corrective actions where necessary.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance food quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.

Global Chinese Cuisine Standards
• Serve as Cathay’s center of excellence and subject matter expert for Chinese and Hong Kong cuisine, establishing and governing culinary standards, recipes, and quality benchmarks across the global catering network.
• Ensure the authenticity, consistency, and quality of products delivered by all catering units serving Cathay customers.
• Support strategic culinary projects, customer menu presentations, special events

Operational Support & People Development
• Lead, coach, and develop culinary team members to enhance operational effectiveness and culinary capabilities.
• Support menu development, product evaluations, and the implementation of new menu concepts and initiatives.
• Coordinate effectively with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth operations, resource planning, and service delivery.
• Support VIP events, special catering functions, and participate in task forces, projects, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Culinary Consultancy & Outstation Support
• Serve as a culinary consultant between Cathay and Cathay Dining, ensuring catering operations align with Cathay's service vision and quality standards.
• Provide hands-on support to outstation catering units through overseas assignments, conducting audits, coaching local teams, and driving quality improvements.
• Ensure compliance with approved recipes, product specifications, and customer experience requirements, while supporting the implementation of new menus and culinary initiatives across the network.

General Responsibilities
• Ensure compliance with all food safety, HACCP, hygiene, and occupational health and safety requirements.
• Promote a culture of quality, teamwork, innovation, and continuous improvement.
• Perform any other duties or projects as assigned by management.
• Ensure and verify adherence to recipes, CDI specifications
• Manage food cost, yield, portion control, labour deployment, waste reduction, and section productivity against agreed targets.
• Maintain accurate recipe, allergen, nutritional, production, and change-control documentation, ensuring only approved specifications are used.
• Validate raw materials, suppliers, cooking methods, chilling, holding, reheating, and service procedures to ensure product quality throughout the airline catering cycle.
• Establish measurable culinary KPIs and provide regular reporting on quality performance, non-conformities, corrective actions, waste, and productivity.
• Support operational trials, scale-up, shelf-life validation, and implementation readiness before new products or menus are launched.
• Ensure effective manpower planning, shift handovers, equipment care, workplace organisation, and escalation of operational or maintenance risks.
• Participate in different excellence projects and improvement initiatives, raise the food quality standard and always stay one step ahead
• Lead root-cause analysis of recurring quality, productivity, and customer issues
• Recommend opportunities for menu enhancement, sustainability improvements, and product differentiation
• Leading activities to achieve improvements in food quality, customer satisfaction, consistency, and costs

Requirement:

Education
• Secondary education with a recognized Diploma, Certificate, or equivalent qualification in Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management, Food & Beverage Management, or a related discipline.
• Professional culinary qualifications from a recognized institution are preferred.

Experience
• Minimum 10 years of relevant culinary experience specializing in Chinese and Hong Kong cuisine.
• Proven experience in a senior culinary leadership position, preferably within airline catering, premium hospitality, luxury hotels, large-scale catering operations, or fine dining establishments.
• Demonstrated experience in menu development, recipe standardization, quality management, and large-scale food production.
• Experience in conducting culinary audits, quality reviews, training, and capability development initiatives is highly desirable.
• Exposure to multi-site or international catering operations would be an advantage.

Knowledge & Competencies
• Strong expertise in Chinese and Hong Kong cuisine, including traditional and contemporary culinary techniques.
• Sound knowledge of food safety standards, HACCP principles, hygiene requirements, and quality assurance practices.
• Strong leadership, coaching, and team development skills.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and continuous improvement mindset.
• Ability to work independently and adapt effectively in a fast-paced, multicultural environment.
• Able to demonstrate commercial awareness, including food cost, yield, Labour productivity, waste control, and value engineering.
• Experience developing SOPs, culinary standards, specifications, training materials, and governance frameworks, to establish, maintain, and monitor culinary standards across multiple sites or production units
• Strong understanding of allergen management, traceability, temperature control, and corrective and preventive action practices.
• Competence in Microsoft Office and digital recipe, specification, quality, or production management systems.

Mobility Requirement
• Willingness and ability to undertake international travel and short-notice overseas assignments.
• Must be available for overseas secondments of up to three weeks at a time to support global catering operations and quality improvement initiatives.
• Working proficiency in English and Chinese; Cantonese and/or Putonghua proficiency is preferred.
• Available to work rostered shifts, weekends, public holidays, and extended hours when operationally required.