Kitchen team terms: executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie, commis and the kitchen brigade in a hotel

A hotel kitchen brigade is the ranked team that runs a kitchen: the executive chef owns the food direction and the numbers, the sous chef runs service day to day, chefs de partie own single sections such as sauce or pastry, and commis cooks and stewards support them. The titles are French in origin and used loosely.

The advert asks for a chef de partie. Three candidates arrive: one ran the grill at a large resort, one ran the cold larder at a boutique hotel, one was a commis who covered the pastry section for a season. All three are right, and the advert said none of it. This article explains the hotel kitchen brigade roles one by one, in plain words, so that your adverts, contracts, rotas and handover forms describe the same job.

Why are kitchen titles so confusing in a hotel?#

Because the words come from a French brigade system built for large kitchens, and hotels apply them to kitchens of every size, in two languages at once.

The titles are French job names from a station-based hierarchy codified in large European kitchens. They describe a position in a line, not a certificate or a level of training. Hotels then add their own layer on top: a separate outlet kitchen, a banquet kitchen, a pastry kitchen and sometimes a central production kitchen, so the same title can sit at different heights in two hotels.

Three vocabularies run in parallel for one person: the Turkish payroll title, the English title in the advert, and the French station name on the rota. Titles also drift with practice. A commis who covers a section for a season is often written on the rota as chef de partie long before any contract says so.

The practical cost is that an advert, a contract, a rota and a handover form can describe four different jobs, and every dispute about responsibility starts there. There is no national standard to appeal to, so the hotel has to supply the definition itself, in writing, per role.

What is the difference between an executive chef and a sous chef?#

The executive chef owns the kitchen's direction and its numbers across every outlet; the sous chef runs the kitchen through a service, inside that direction.

The executive chef sets menu direction, agrees food cost targets with the F&B manager, makes purchasing and supplier decisions, builds the brigade, owns the food safety plan and answers to the general manager. The sous chef, literally the one under the chef, owns prep lists, service pace, staffing gaps, quality at the pass and closing. This is why the role is judged on a single service rather than a season.

A chef de cuisine runs one kitchen or outlet and reports to the executive chef; in a single-outlet hotel the two titles usually sit on one person. In a large hotel an executive sous chef sits between the executive chef and the outlet chefs, translating direction into a weekly plan and a duty rota.

The clean test is not the title but the decision: who may change tomorrow's menu, who may send a plate back, who may approve extra hours, who signs the daily food safety record. The most common structural fault is a sous chef held responsible for food cost without authority over purchasing, the menu or the portion standard.

What is a chef de partie, and what are the sections of a hotel kitchen?#

A chef de partie is the cook who owns one station, a partie, for a service: its preparation, its quality and its output at the pass.

Partie means station, not rank. The station is what makes the job description: what is prepped, which equipment is used, what is held and for how long, and when the pass expects the plate. The classic stations are sauce, grill and roast, fish, cold larder, vegetables and starch, pastry, butchery and breakfast, and a hotel usually runs only the ones its menu needs.

Cold larder, the garde manger, carries the most food safety exposure because much of its work is cold and made ahead, so its records matter as much as its output. Pastry normally runs as its own brigade with its own chef reporting to the executive chef, because its timing follows a different clock from service. The aboyeur, or expéditeur, calls orders at the pass and sequences the sections; in a small hotel the sous chef does this while also cooking. One station can be one person or four, which is why headcount can never be read from a title.

Because a station's output is what the menu sells, the chef de partie who owns it should also see what the station's dishes cost to produce, using standard recipes and portion cost in hotel kitchens.

Where do commis, kitchen assistants and stewarding fit?#

Commis are the cooks who do a section's groundwork under the chef de partie; stewarding is a separate team that keeps pots, plates and the kitchen itself clean and stocked.

Commis levels run from commis 1, the most experienced, down to commis 3, with a stagiaire below that. The level describes experience, not authority. A demi chef de partie sits between commis and chef de partie: able to run the station for a service under supervision, which is the usual step before owning it.

A kitchen assistant or preparer does defined prep tasks and does not own a station, so counting them as section cover hides a real gap on the rota. Stewarding covers pot wash, plate wash, the kitchen cleaning schedule and banqueting equipment, and it usually reports to the executive chef or the F&B manager rather than to a section chef. If you want to plan this line properly, read what stewarding is and why it needs planning.

The rota mistake to avoid is counting stewards as cooks: the pass is then short at the busiest hour, and the section chefs end up washing pans instead of plating. The second mistake is planning no stewarding at all, which turns a cleaning schedule into something done when there is time.

How does the brigade change between a small and a large hotel?#

In a small hotel the titles collapse into two or three people; in a large hotel they multiply into outlets, shifts and a second layer of supervision. The work is the same, the reporting lines are not.

Small hotel: one kitchen, one or two outlets#

One person can be executive chef, chef de cuisine and chef de partie at once, with a second cook covering the station on their day off. The title should describe what the person actually decides. Calling a lone cook executive chef in an advert attracts candidates expecting a brigade to lead, and sets an expectation the role cannot meet.

Large hotel: outlets, banquet and pastry#

The line runs executive chef, executive sous chef, outlet chef de cuisine, sous chef, chef de partie, demi chef de partie, commis, with stewarding as a parallel line. Banquet and à la carte compete for the same people at the same hour, so the chart has to state which outlet has priority and who decides when they clash. Two people can hold the same title in different outlets with different authority, which is why the chart must show the outlet next to the title. In both sizes, the chart should be one page and should name a person, not only a box, so that the evening shift knows whom to call.

How do you make adverts, rotas and handover forms use the same words?#

Give every title one card with the same five fields, and use those exact words in every document that touches the role.

The five fields: the title in Turkish and English, the sections owned, the decisions allowed alone, the escalation route, and who covers the role in an absence. The advert names the sections and the shift pattern rather than only the title, and states which title the role reports to and which roles report to it. Keep the payroll title stable and attach the card to the contract as a duty schedule, so the rota can change with the menu without renegotiating the contract.

On the rota, label the section next to each name, so a missing station is visible before service rather than at the pass. On the handover form, give each section one signature line for prep, holding conditions and shortages, and one line for the pass at close. Attach the section's recipe costs to the same card, so the chef de partie who owns a station can see what the station's dishes cost to produce. Review the cards when a menu, an outlet or a shift pattern changes, and date the version so old printouts can be recognized. Since some of these records overlap with legal duties, check the food law records a hotel kitchen has to keep and confirm your own case with a legal adviser where the rules are unclear.

What to do next#

Write the cards for the titles you actually use this week, starting with the one printed in your current advert, then check next weekend's rota against them. The three ideas fit together: a title is a scope of decision, hotel size changes the reporting lines and not the work, and one vocabulary across advert, contract, rota and handover is what makes the team accountable.