Banquet Chef: Lead High-Volume Events & Culinary Team

The Meritage Resort & Spa – Napa, CA; Napa (CA); On-site; USD 113,000 - 138,000; Full time

Job summary

The Meritage Resort & Spa – Napa, CA is seeking an experienced Banquet Chef to lead a high-volume culinary operation and a team of ~40 professionals. You will partner with the Executive Chef to deliver exceptional food quality, manage production across multiple venues, and drive banquet excellence for weddings, conferences, and events.

You will oversee event execution, food safety, budgeting, and staffing while maintaining service standards and guest satisfaction in a fast-paced resort setting.

Qualifications

• Minimum five years of progressive culinary leadership experience in a high-volume hotel, resort, convention center, catering company, or large banquet operation.
• Experience leading a large culinary team, preferably 30 or more employees.
• Strong knowledge of banquet production, large-volume cooking, event timelines, kitchen logistics, and plated-meal execution.
• Proven ability to lead high-volume culinary operations while maintaining exceptional quality, consistency, presentation, and service timing.
• Experience managing labor, scheduling, food costs, purchasing, inventory, waste, and departmental budgets.

Responsibilities

• Lead the daily culinary operation for all banquet, catering, wedding, conference, meeting, and special-event functions.
• Direct, coach, schedule, and develop a banquet culinary team of ~40 employees.
• Collaborate with Executive Chef to execute culinary vision, standards, budgets, and priorities.
• Oversee production across multiple kitchens and venues to ensure quality and timeliness.
• Review event orders and guest counts to plan culinary requirements.
• Lead production and culinary meetings to communicate priorities and assignments.
• Develop production plans, prep lists, and timelines for upcoming events.

Skills

Culinary leadership

High-volume operations

Team leadership

Budgeting

Food safety HACCP

Education

Culinary degree or training

Tools

Microsoft Office

Scheduling systems

Purchasing platforms

Event management systems

Culinary costing tools

Job description

The Meritage Resort & Spa – Napa, CA is seeking an experienced Banquet Chef to lead a high-volume culinary operation and a team of ~40 professionals. You will partner with the Executive Chef to deliver exceptional food quality, manage production across multiple venues, and drive banquet excellence for weddings, conferences, and events.

You will oversee event execution, food safety, budgeting, and staffing while maintaining service standards and guest satisfaction in a fast-paced resort setting.