Executive Chef Resume Template in Black and Gold
A great menu tells a guest who you are before the first plate arrives. Your resume should do the same for a general manager or restaurant owner. This template is styled like a fine-dining menu card, black with gold detailing, so it feels like it came from a serious kitchen.
Mise en Place: The Look of the Page
The page is a deep charcoal, framed by two thin gold rules with a small gold diamond at the bottom center. At the top, a tiny spaced Chef sits above your name, set in large Libre Baskerville capitals in warm ivory. A gold diamond between two short rules leads to a line of three specialties in spaced gold letters, then your contact details with gold outline icons.
The body follows a classic menu structure: section labels in small gold capitals on the left, a fine gold rule, and your content on the right. Job titles are in Libre Baskerville, restaurants in italics, and bullet points use small gold diamonds. Karla, a clean sans-serif, keeps everything readable at a small size.
A Tasting Menu for Your Career
- Amuse-bouche, the profile: three lines on your cuisine, the size of the brigade you run, and one number, such as food cost.
- Main courses, experience: three kitchens, newest first, with covers, team size, and the result you are proudest of in each.
- Sides, strengths: nine skills in a neat three-by-three grid, from menu design to food safety.
- Chef's special, signature plates: three dishes in italics with their components, a section most chef resumes miss.
- Petits fours, education and recognition: culinary school, certifications, stages and awards with years aligned to the right.
Writing Signature Plates That Sell You
Name the dish simply, then list two or three components the way you would on a menu: Dry-aged duck, cherry jus, roasted roots, thyme. Choose plates that show range, for example, one vegetable dish, one protein, and one dessert, and that connect to the kind of restaurant you are applying to. Avoid trade secrets; this is a taste, not the recipe.
The Numbers Owners Look For
Restaurants are businesses, so give your culinary story financial weight. Food cost percentage, labor cost, covers per service, guest scores, and health inspection results all belong in your bullets. Bringing food cost from 34% to 28.5% through whole-animal butchery and smarter ordering will interest an owner more than any adjective.
Plating Changes in Word
- The charcoal background, gold frames, diamonds, and label rule are shapes in the page header. Double-click near the top of the page to select them; use Shape Fill or Shape Outline to change colors.
- Each section is a row in a borderless table, so you can add a section by inserting a row and typing a new label.
- The strengths grid is a three-column table; replace any skill by typing over it.
Also Right for Sous Chefs and Kitchen Managers
You do not need an executive title to use this layout. A sous chef can lead with the station they ran and the covers they handled, list signature plates they developed under a head chef, and keep recognition to team awards. Kitchen and catering managers can rename the plates section Menus Delivered and list events instead of dishes. The frame and gold labels give any culinary résumé the same polished, dining-room feel.
Printing a Dark Resume Well
Dark pages are striking on screen, so send a PDF for online applications. If you hand in printed copies at a trial shift or interview, use a laser printer with background colors turned on and a heavier matte paper to avoid streaks. For a lighter version, set the page shape to ivory and change the text color to charcoal; the gold details work on both.
The design uses Libre Baskerville and Karla, free from Google Fonts, on one US Letter page.
