Culinary Director | DFW

About the Opportunity

A growing, chef-driven hospitality group in Texas is seeking an accomplished Culinary Director to lead culinary strategy and execution across a diverse, multi-concept restaurant portfolio.

The group operates a growing portfolio of restaurants across Dallas–Fort Worth and West Texas, with concepts spanning fine dining, polished casual, steakhouses, seafood and sushi, French, Mexican/Tex-Mex, contemporary American cuisine and more. The organization continues to expand and is looking for a senior culinary leader who can help elevate its existing restaurants while building the people, systems and standards needed to support future growth.

This is not a traditional corporate chef role focused solely on standardization. Each concept has its own identity, and the Culinary Director will be responsible for protecting that individuality while creating stronger consistency, accountability and financial performance across the portfolio.

Position Overview

Reporting to the VP of Culinary and working closely with ownership, executive leadership, operations and restaurant-level culinary teams, the Culinary Director will provide strategic and hands-on leadership across the organization.

The right person will be equally comfortable developing food and developing chefs—someone who can walk into a kitchen and immediately assess quality and execution, but can also sit with senior leadership and confidently discuss food cost, labor, purchasing, menu engineering, P&L performance and profitability.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide culinary leadership and direction across a diverse portfolio of restaurant concepts.
• Maintain and elevate standards for food quality, flavor, presentation, consistency and execution.
• Develop and evolve menus, seasonal offerings, recipes and culinary programming while preserving the identity of each individual concept.
• Balance culinary creativity with commercial viability and restaurant profitability.
• Partner with operations leadership on food cost, labor, purchasing, waste, portion control and overall kitchen performance.
• Analyze culinary and operational performance and identify opportunities to improve both execution and financial results.
• Develop recipes, specifications, training tools and systems that create consistency across multiple locations.
• Recruit, mentor, train and develop Executive Chefs and culinary leaders throughout the organization.
• Identify and develop the next generation of culinary leadership as the company continues to grow.
• Build a strong culinary culture centered around accountability, mentorship, creativity and hospitality.
• Partner with vendors and purchasing teams on quality, pricing, availability and sourcing.
• Regularly visit restaurants throughout the portfolio to assess execution, coach teams and provide follow-through.
• Support new restaurant openings and help establish culinary systems and standards for future concepts.
• Collaborate with ownership and executive leadership on culinary strategy, concept development and continued company growth.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is an accomplished chef, leader and operator with significant experience overseeing culinary operations across multiple restaurants, locations or concepts. This person will understand how to lead within a chef-driven organization—bringing structure and accountability while still allowing creativity and individual concept identity to thrive.

• Significant senior-level culinary leadership experience within respected, chef-driven restaurant or hospitality groups
• Multi-unit and/or multi-concept culinary oversight experience
• Proven success recruiting, mentoring and developing Executive Chefs and culinary teams
• Strong understanding of food cost, labor, purchasing, inventory and restaurant profitability
• Extensive menu development, recipe costing and menu engineering experience
• Experience supporting new restaurant openings and organizational growth
• Ability to develop scalable systems and standards without creating an overly corporate culinary environment
• Broad culinary range and experience working across different concepts and levels of service
• Strong financial and operational acumen paired with genuine culinary creativity
• Entrepreneurial, adaptable leadership style with the ability to operate successfully in a growing, founder-led environment
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build credibility across ownership, operations and restaurant-level teams
• Willingness to remain visible, engaged and hands-on in the restaurants

Why This Opportunity

This is an opportunity to join a founder-led, chef-driven organization at an important stage of growth. The Culinary Director will have meaningful influence over the food, people and systems behind a highly diverse restaurant portfolio while working directly with senior culinary and executive leadership.

They are looking for someone who wants to build, create, teach and develop—not simply maintain what already exists.