Culinary Field Chef

Vallarta is a renowned foodservice company specializing in authentic Mexican cuisine through its diverse restaurant concepts including Taqueria, Tortilleria, and other innovative dining experiences. Vallarta is committed to delivering exceptional guest experiences by emphasizing quality food, consistent service, and operational excellence across all of its locations. This company prides itself on fostering a strong culture rooted in delivering our Nuestra CASA service standards, operational efficiency, and culinary innovation. Vallarta's growth strategy involves expanding its footprint through new store openings and robust culinary programs while maintaining a sharp focus on product quality and customer satisfaction.

The Culinary Field Chef position at Vallarta is a critical role designed to support and enhance culinary operations across all field locations. This exempt role reports directly to the Director of Culinary and involves extensive hands-on operational support with a goal to maintain and elevate Vallarta’s high standards. The position requires approximately 80% travel to various locations where the Culinary Field Chef acts as a key resource for coaching kitchen managers, ensuring consistent recipe execution, training culinary teams, implementing operational improvements, and supporting new menu rollouts.

This role demands a leader who is both a skilled culinary expert and an operations-focused professional capable of driving sales growth, ensuring food quality and safety compliance, and enhancing the overall guest experience. The Culinary Field Chef will partner closely with the Corporate Chef and cross-functional teams on numerous initiatives, including recipe development, product introductions, and training programs. They will play an integral part in opening new stores and remodeling existing ones, providing the operational expertise required to transition culinary programs into successful and smooth field execution.

Field responsibilities include strengthening the effectiveness of Vallarta’s multiple foodservice concepts, mentoring Kitchen Managers on standards and service expectations, verifying recipe consistency in flavor, portioning, and presentation, and identifying areas to optimize food cost and efficiency. Additionally, this role enforces compliance with health, safety, sanitation, and HACCP regulations to uphold the highest food quality and safety standards.

Customer service skills are paramount, as the Culinary Field Chef regularly models Vallarta's service practices and addresses guest feedback professionally to ensure satisfaction. Leadership responsibilities include coaching culinary teams, promoting accountability, teamwork, and helping with staffing and onboarding when necessary. This role also requires excellent communication skills to maintain clear, timely collaboration with operational leadership and escalating any food safety or service issues.

The ideal candidate will have at least five years of culinary or multi-unit foodservice operations leadership experience, competence in training and mentoring culinary teams in a fast-paced environment, and a strong grasp of cost controls including labor, inventory, and food costs. A high school diploma is required, while a culinary degree is preferred; equivalent experience will be considered. This position offers a challenging opportunity for culinary professionals driven by operational success and continuous improvement within a rapidly growing company with a rich culinary heritage.