Executive Chef & GM Recruitment - Pre-Opening Venue

Launching a premium bayside steakhouse required getting both senior leadership appointments right before the doors opened.

Rob Wilkes

Melbourne

Executive Chef & GM Recruitment — Pre-Opening Venue

The brief

Supporting the appointment of both an Executive Chef and General Manager ahead of a premium bayside Melbourne venue launch, with six months to opening.

Why early mattered

The most important hiring decisions in hospitality aren't made under pressure during service. They're made months earlier, when structure, systems, and leadership are still being defined. Ownership made a deliberate decision to appoint senior leaders early and embed them into the pre-opening phase, rather than hiring late and inheriting decisions already made.

What the search required

At this level, recruitment isn't about experience alone. It's about the ability to build a venue from the ground up. Kitchen design, service flow, labour models, operational frameworks, working directly alongside ownership through the full build phase. The process ran across three months. We screened extensively and presented three genuinely credible candidates for each role. Not a longlist. Three real options at senior level for a venue that didn't yet exist. That requires a different kind of conversation with candidates.

Before final appointments were made

We arranged for the preferred Executive Chef and General Manager to meet one on one. At this level, the working relationship between senior leaders matters as much as individual capability. Both needed to be confident they could build something together before either committed.

The outcome

Both appointments bring hatted-level culinary experience and strong operational credibility across Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula. More importantly, they have the judgement to build systems early, test them, and refine them before the pressures of service begin. Early leadership alignment means decisions are made with time to challenge assumptions and stress-test execution before they become costly to change.