Kitchen Assistant

Modern Art Oxford; Oxford; On-site; GBP 11,000; Part time

Job summary

A contemporary art organization in Oxford is seeking a Kitchen Assistant to provide excellent customer service and prepare high-quality seasonal dishes. This part-time role involves working with a team to ensure efficient café operations, while maintaining hygiene and safety standards. Ideal candidates will have experience in a café environment, a passion for food, and strong attention to detail.

Benefits

Auto-enrolment pension scheme

Staff discount in the shop and café

Employee Assistance Programme

Qualifications

• Passion for preparing good quality fresh food.
• Experience in a café environment with food preparation duties.
• Barista experience with a range of coffees.

Responsibilities

• Provide excellent customer service.
• Prepare high quality seasonal dishes.
• Adhere to hygiene policies and health & safety regulations.

Skills

Food preparation

Excellent attention to detail

Customer service

Self-motivated

Team player

Education

Level 2 NVQ Qualification or equivalent

Qualifications in Level 2 Hygiene

Tools

Cash handling

Till usage

Job description

Kitchen Assistant

• Contract: Permanent
• Hours: Part Time - 16 Hours per week
• Work Pattern: Tuesday and Saturday
• Salary: £25,397 per annum, pro rata (£10,159 per annum, actual)
• Place of work: Modern Art Oxford, Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1
• Line Manager: Cafe supervisor

About Us

Modern Art Oxford is one of the UKs most exciting and influential contemporary art organisations, renowned for its bold and ambitious artistic programme that promotes diversity and internationalism and celebrates contemporary art as a progressive agent of social change.

Modern Art Oxford welcomes more than 100,000 visitors each year with 10,000 attendances in creative learning and participation activities.

About The Role

The Modern Art café is currently open Tuesday to Saturday 11am-6pm and Sunday 11am-4pm, we work as a team to produce a clear menu offering paninis, soups, and seasonal specials as well as a wide range of cakes and pastries. Devising dishes to limit wastage and working to strict budgets is a very important part of our menu planning.

Our café is an important part of the gallery, and our Kitchen Assistant is responsible for providing a welcoming, friendly environment, serving a high quality menu with excellent customer service. This is an operational and hands‑on role where the large majority of time is spent planning and preparing the café food and drinks and interacting with the general public.

Responsibilities

Customer Service

• Provide excellent customer service to a wide variety of customers both external and internal (staff, artists etc.)

Food Preparation

• Update weekly menus and prepare orders for the following week.
• Create high quality seasonal dishes in design and taste that reflect the Gallerys exhibition programme.
• Ensure that all café food and drink is prepared and presented in accordance with the standards.
• Ensure that Café displays are attractive, well stocked and menus are produced according to plan.
• Take pride in maintaining our hygiene rating we all clean and a strict schedule is adhered to.

Health & Safety and Daily Operations

• Adhere to Hygiene Policies and ensure the kitchen meets all regulations Allergens, Manual Handling, CoSHH, HACCP, Fire, Knife handling
• Ensure high levels of hygiene are maintained in the kitchen and café areas according to procedures set out in the Safer Food Better Business Manual. Regularly review food hygiene procedures.
• Ensure that all health and safety requirements are met in the kitchen.
• Complete all other training assigned by the Gallery, including Safeguarding Children Level 2.

Staff

• Attend regular gallery staff meetings.

Essential Skills & Experience

• A passion for preparing good quality fresh food with the drive to create new recipes and experiment with new ideas that respond to the Gallerys programme.
• Excellent eye for detail and food presentation.
• Experience of working in a similar café environment including exposure to the duties outlined above (specifically food preparation, cooking, cash handling and till usage).
• Level 2 or over NVQ Qualification or equivalent.
• Qualifications in Level 2 Hygiene, Food Allergens Awareness and Working in Licensed Premises. Willingness to train to Level 3.
• Barista experience, making a range of coffees and hot drinks.
• Understanding of Allergens and dietary requirements.
• Self‑motivated and able to work on own initiative and without supervision.
• You need to be enthusiastic, approachable and above all an absolute team player.

Benefits

An auto‑enrolment pension scheme is in place with Legal & General. Under pension auto enrolment legislation, the employee will pay 5% (before tax relief) and the employer will pay 3% of qualifying earnings to the Legal and General plan.

Employees are entitled to a staff discount in the Modern Art Oxford Shop and Café. There is an Employee Assistance Programme through Gemelli, and a series of discounts and salary sacrifice schemes through BHN Extras.

Application Deadline

Applications must be received by 9.00am Sunday 30 November 2025.

Initial interviews are planned on receipt of successful applications on a rollover basis, please apply as soon as possible.

Interested?

If you would like to find out more, please click the apply button. You will be directed to our website to complete your application for this position.

Equality

Modern Art Oxford is committed to creating equality of opportunity for all and we value diversity in our team. As part of our Anti‑racism Action Plan, we welcome applications from people from the Global Majority who are under‑represented in the workforce in our sector.

No agencies please.