Hiring a line cook vs. a sous chef: what to look for
The skills, signals and interview questions that separate a solid line cook from a sous chef who can run your kitchen.
pactful team · · 1 min read
Not every great cook is ready to lead a kitchen, and not every kitchen needs a leader on every station. Knowing the difference saves you a bad hire.
Line cooks: consistency under pressure
A line cook’s job is to execute the same dish perfectly, hundreds of times. Look for:
- Station experience that matches yours: grill, sauté, fry, cold.
- Speed and cleanliness during a practical.
- Calm when tickets stack up.
Sous chefs: running the pass
A sous chef keeps service moving and the team on track. Look for:
- Leadership: have they trained or managed a station before?
- Ordering and prep planning: do they think a day ahead?
- Food safety ownership: can they explain how they’d run your checks?
Interview questions that work
- “Walk me through how you set up your station before service.”
- “Tell me about a night when everything went wrong. What did you do?”
- “How would you train someone new on our menu?”
Always do a practical
Cook one dish from your menu, then one of theirs. You’ll learn more in twenty minutes than in an hour of talking.
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