Head Chef

Job Posted: 19 September 2026

• Contract Term: Permanent
• Location: Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
• Contract Type: Full time
• Salary: £60-70k Package
• Industries: Catering, Hospitality & Bar Chefs Management & Executive

After six successful years, including a listing in every major UK guidebook, The Terrace is embarking on a new chapter.

We are seeking a Head Chef with a background in ambitious restaurants who wants to work with us to bring destination dining back to the Isle of Wight. You might refer to what we want to do as "pushing".

We have a loyal customer base, a very structured, controlled service based around specific seating times, and an experienced front of house team very used to how the business operates & why it's been successful. We have an award-winning wine list designed & supplied by the UK's sixth best sommelier.

Currently we serve 150 people daily in summer, we want to reduce this to 80. In the off-season we are open 4.5 days with lunches featuring a £12.50 no-choice two-course menu that changes every few days yet keeps us breaking even at a time of year when most premium restaurants either close or lose money.

To join us as Head Chef and succeed, you will need to find the following things instinctive:

Organise a team to cook refined, highly delicious food based on classical flavours that appeals to a 40+, mid/high-income age group.

Treat owners as trusted business partners, not bosses.

Communicate with absolute clarity, openness & positivity, including having constructive discussion around dishes, income, costs & relationships.

Understand your role in achieving a balance of profitability, staff happiness & accolades. 

Establish yourself firmly on the management side of the business & carry yourself as an inspiring leader.

Keep your kitchen spotlessly clean.

Feel relaxed about speaking confidently, respectfully & enthusiastically to colleagues, media & guests.

Treat all colleagues with absolute respect & empathy with a zero-tolerence approach to gossip & negativity.

Pro-actively manage staff costs to ensure profitability in the off-season when potential income is about 25% of on-season.

Manage a team of happy, motivated chefs both in and out of the kitchen. If you aren't comfortable sitting down at a table to have meaningful employee conversations, this isn't the role for you.

Cost every single dish you would even consider putting on a menu to 70-75% or cash-equivalent margin.

Rotate dishes & menus based on seasons showing awareness of consistency but also of variety for regular guests.

Work with the best quality produce but keep prices appropriate by selecting less premium items & cuts. If you've never asked yourself the question "are scallops really the most margin-appropriate product to make a staple of my menu?" then this job may not be for you.

Have a zero-tolerance approach to food waste.

Rather than a restrictive pain in the arse, see two-courses for £12.50 sold off-season in a highly seasonal seaside town as a unique challenge that's makes it possible to employ 16 people year round.

Know Safer Food Better Business backwards & be comfortable applying it to your team's unique situation.

Accept that micro shoots, caviar, truffles & obscure Japanese products made in factories are unlikely to make your food any more appealing to guests or your guide scores any higher.

Don't ask what hours you'll work - create a profitable, well-managed kitchen around the hours you know you should need to work.

We are happy to chat to anyone who wishes to relocate but our absolute preference is for someone who has a specific reason to live, move or commute here - perhaps already here, returning home, moving to be with family here already, perhaps a regular holidayer who has always wanted to live here, or perhaps based just across the water in Hampshire.