Hospitality & Culinary • Urgent Hiring
Head Chef – Voco Sharjah (Pre-Opening)
Sharjah, UAE | Full Time | AED 10,000/month
A brand-new hotel is opening its doors in Sharjah, and it needs a chef who can build a kitchen from the ground up. Voco Sharjah, operating under IHG Hotels & Resorts, is hiring a Head Chef to lead its pre-opening culinary team. If you’ve spent years earning your stripes in busy kitchens and you’re ready to put your name on a menu from day one, this is the kind of opportunity that doesn’t come around often.
About Voco Sharjah
Voco is IHG’s fast-growing global brand, with close to 137 hotels worldwide known for their distinctive beachfront resorts, city properties, and branded residences. Voco Sharjah sits right in the heart of the city, giving guests and staff easy access to Sharjah International Airport and the surrounding commercial districts. The property is also perfectly positioned near the University of Sharjah, Aljada community, and Sharjah Hospital.
The hotel carries Voco’s signature warmth throughout — stylish guest rooms, luxury suites, a fitness centre, swimming pools, and a full lineup of dining venues including a lobby lounge and café. Whether guests are staying one night or several weeks, the brand promise is the same: a comfortable, friendly, memorable stay. That promise starts in the kitchen.
Why This Role Matters
Every plate tells a story, and for this pre-opening, Voco Sharjah wants a Head Chef who can write a memorable one. You won’t be stepping into someone else’s system — you’ll be building the kitchen operation, the menu philosophy, and the team culture from scratch. That’s rare, and it’s exactly why this listing is marked urgent.
What You’ll Do
- Lead all kitchen operations across the hotel’s bar, restaurants, banquet halls, in-room dining, and bakery production, keeping quality and innovation consistent throughout.
- Oversee food preparation, freshness, and adherence to recipes and hotel standards.
- Design an innovative, diverse menu that balances flavour, dietary needs, and each restaurant concept.
- Keep workstations service-ready and communicate clearly with kitchen staff so tickets move and guests stay happy.
- Coordinate with the Operations Director, F&B team, and other departments to deliver standout dining experiences and successful events.
- Plan daily culinary operations, staffing levels, and workflow across shifts.
- Track food costing, spot variances, and implement cost-saving measures without compromising quality.
- Manage supplier relationships and the availability and quality of ingredients and equipment.
- Maintain full compliance with food safety, hygiene, and sanitisation standards.
- Handle menu engineering, recipe standardisation, and accurate costing to maximise F&B profitability.
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What You’ll Need
- 5–7 years of culinary leadership experience, including managing large-scale kitchen operations.
- A culinary arts degree or equivalent accredited training, with a completed chef apprenticeship.
- Solid grounding in food safety, HACCP, and local UAE hygiene regulations.
- Comfort working in high-exposure environments with guests, suppliers, and outsourced teams while holding professional standards.
- A track record of mentoring commis chefs, reducing wastage, and training kitchen staff under pressure.
- Strong menu development skills, cost control, inventory management, and budgeting experience.
- Proven leadership — the ability to coach, uplift, and build a high-performing kitchen team.
- Willingness to collaborate closely with executive chefs on concepts and the overall dining experience.
Role Snapshot
| Location | Sharjah, UAE |
| Salary | AED 10,000/month |
| Job Type | Full Time |
| Experience | 5+ years |
| Career Level | Senior |
Why Join a Pre-Opening Team
Pre-opening roles are different from stepping into an established kitchen. You’re not adapting to someone else’s systems — you’re writing the standard operating procedures, training the first generation of line cooks, and setting the tone for how the kitchen will run for years to come. It’s demanding, but it’s also the fastest way to prove yourself as a leader, and it looks very different on a CV than “joined an existing team.”
Sharjah’s hospitality scene is expanding quickly, and Voco’s entry into the market is part of that momentum. Being the Head Chef who opens the doors gives you visibility with IHG’s regional leadership from day one, along with the kind of hands-on ownership that’s hard to find once a hotel has been running for a few years.
This is a ground-floor opportunity to shape a brand-new hotel kitchen in one of Sharjah’s most connected locations. If you’ve been waiting for the chance to build something instead of inheriting it, Voco Sharjah’s pre-opening team wants to hear from you.
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