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Contents
Commis Chef Resume: The Essentials
Why This Commis Chef Resume Works
How to Write a Commis Chef Resume That Gets Interviews
What to Include in a Commis Chef Resume
Commis Chef Resume Summary Examples
Commis Chef Work Experience Examples
Top Commis Chef Skills
Certifications for a Commis Chef
Common Commis Chef Resume Mistakes
Commis Chef Resume FAQs
Summary
Commis chef with three years in busy Roman restaurant kitchens, building solid foundations across the larder, pasta and grill sections. Runs mise en place to service, plates to spec under the chef de partie, and keeps a clean, organised station even when tickets pile up. Learned classic Italian technique from scratch-made pasta and sauces to seasonal antipasti, and is quick to pick up new dishes. Holds food-hygiene certification and keeps a spotless, well-organised station every service. Reliable, calm under the dinner rush and genuinely eager to grow toward chef de partie. Looking for a commis or demi-chef role in an ambitious kitchen that invests in developing its young cooks.
Professional Experience
Commis Chef
Trattoria del Borgo, Rome, Italy
Apr 2021 – Present
- Run mise en place and work the larder, pasta and grill sections under the chefs de partie during busy services.
- Make fresh pasta, sauces and seasonal antipasti from scratch to the kitchen's recipe specifications.
- Plate dishes to spec at the pass, keeping consistency and speed through the dinner rush.
- Maintain a clean, organised station and full HACCP compliance, with a strong cleanliness record.
- Pick up new dishes and sections quickly, stepping in wherever the kitchen is short on a given night.
- Support deliveries, stock rotation and prep lists to keep the kitchen ready for service.
Kitchen Stagiaire / Trainee
Ristorante Aurelio, Rome, Italy
Oct 2019 – Mar 2021
- Completed kitchen training rotations across prep, larder and pasta sections during service.
- Learned knife skills, stock-making and core Italian technique hands-on from the brigade.
- Supported the brigade through service and kept prep stations fully stocked.
- Helped make fresh pasta and sauces daily to the kitchen's recipes.
- Built the speed and reliability that earned a full commis-chef position.
Catering Assistant & Kitchen Porter
Rome Catering Co., Rome, Italy
Jan 2018 – Sep 2019
- Worked as a kitchen porter and catering assistant, prepping ingredients and supporting the cooks.
- Kept the kitchen clean and organised to hygiene standards through busy events.
- Picked up basic prep, knife work and kitchen discipline on the job.
- Earned a kitchen-training place that started his career as a chef.
Education
Professional Diploma in Culinary Arts, Culinary Arts
Rome Culinary Institute (IPSSAR)
Sep 2016 – Jun 2019
- Italian hospitality-school culinary diploma covering technique, food science and kitchen safety, with restaurant stages each year. The placements built real line experience before graduating. Moved straight into a commis role at a city restaurant.
HACCP Food Hygiene Certificate, Food Safety
Italian Food Safety Authority
Jul 2019 – Sep 2019
- Certification in HACCP food-hygiene principles and safe-handling practice required for professional kitchens. It underpins the clean, safe station maintained at every service. Refreshed in line with restaurant requirements.
Certifications
HACCP Food Hygiene
Italian Food Safety Authority
Sep 2019 – Present
- Certification in HACCP food-hygiene principles and safe handling required for professional kitchens. It underpins the clean, safe station maintained at every service. Refreshed in line with restaurant requirements.
Italian Cuisine Fundamentals
Rome Culinary School
Sep 2018 – Present
- Culinary-school certificate in Italian cuisine fundamentals covering fresh pasta, sauces and classic technique. It grounds the from-scratch cooking he produces across the kitchen's larder, pasta and grill sections.
Highlights
Trusted across sections
- Picked up larder, pasta and grill quickly enough to cover wherever the brigade is short on a given night. The flexibility makes a young cook genuinely useful during a busy service.
Clean, fast station
- Keeps an organised, HACCP-compliant station even when tickets stack up through the dinner rush. The reliability and cleanliness have marked him out for progression toward chef de partie.
Continued Development
Pastry & Dessert Section
Culinary Institute
May 2021 – Present
- Short course in pastry and dessert work covering doughs, creams and plating. It broadened his range beyond the savoury sections and added cover for the pastry station when needed.
Allergens & Kitchen Safety
Food Safety Academy
Jun 2020 – Present
- Course in allergen management and advanced kitchen safety for professional brigades. It supports the clean, compliant station he keeps and protects diners with specific dietary needs.
Languages
- Italian — Native or Bilingual Proficiency
- English (UK) — Professional Working Proficiency
Technical Skills
- Mise en Place
- Fresh Pasta Making
- Knife Skills
- Larder & Antipasti
- Grill Section
- Plating to Spec
- HACCP & Food Safety
- Station Organisation
- Stock Rotation
- Working Under Pressure
Personal Skills
- Eagerness to Learn
- Reliability
- Composure
- Teamwork
- Stamina
Activities & Interests
- Baking
- Chess
- Guitar
- Music
- Ice Skating
Commis Chef Resume: The Essentials
Before the detail, here is what actually decides whether a head chef reads past your first line:
- Name your sections. Head chefs want to know if you can run larder, sauce, grill or pasta, not just that you have 'kitchen experience'.
- Lead with the food and the volume. Where you cooked, how many covers a service, and what cuisine tells a chef more than any adjective.
- Food hygiene certification is a gate, not a bonus. Level 2 Food Safety (UK) or ServSafe (US) belongs near the top, not buried at the bottom.
- Show you can take a section and hold it under pressure. Reliability at the pass during a full book is the single trait that gets a commis promoted.
- Keep it to one page. A commis or demi CV that runs long reads as padding; chefs skim it in the ten seconds before a shift.
- Signal you want to progress. Chefs invest in cooks who ask to learn sauce or butchery next, so make your direction obvious.
Why This Commis Chef Resume Works
Read the sample above as a worked example. Here is what a hiring head chef would notice in the first pass, and why each choice lands:
- The summary names the sections worked (larder, pasta, grill) instead of claiming to be 'hardworking' - a chef reads that as someone who can be dropped onto a station tonight.
- Experience bullets open with the verb and the section: 'Run mise en place and work the larder, pasta and grill sections' tells the reader exactly what this cook can be trusted with.
- It quantifies the right thing for the level - years on the line and range across stations - rather than inventing food-cost percentages a commis would never own.
- The career arc is legible: kitchen porter, then stagiaire, then commis. A chef sees someone who climbed the brigade the hard way and stuck with it.
- Food hygiene and HACCP appear early and are echoed in the bullets ('full HACCP compliance', 'clean, organised station'), so the compliance box is ticked without a whole paragraph.
- The closing line points at demi chef de partie, telling the chef this is a cook to develop, not a body to fill a rota gap.
How to Write a Commis Chef Resume That Gets Interviews
A commis CV is read fast by a chef between services. Make every line earn its place with these moves:
Lead with the kitchen, the cuisine and the covers
Head chefs judge you by the room you came from. State the restaurant type (fine dining, gastropub, high-volume brasserie), the cuisine, and the covers per service - 'AA Rosette kitchen, ~120 covers a night' says more about your speed and standards than any summary adjective.
Name the sections you have run
Do not write 'assisted in the kitchen'. Write which stations you held: larder/garde manger, sauce, grill, fish, pasta, or pastry. A chef staffing a rota needs to know instantly where you slot in, and naming sections proves you understand how a brigade is built.
Put food hygiene certification where it gets seen
Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene (UK) or ServSafe Food Handler (US) is often a legal gate before you touch a section. List it near the top with the level and year so no one has to ask. If you hold allergen awareness too, add it - allergen law is enforced and chefs care.
Show speed and consistency under a full book
The whole job is holding your section when tickets stack up. Write bullets that show it: prepping to a par list before service, plating to spec at the pass through the rush, keeping the station clean when it's slammed. This is the trait that separates a commis worth promoting from one who just shows up.
Make your direction obvious
Chefs develop cooks who want the next section. Say where you are heading - demi chef de partie, a move into pastry or butchery, a stage in a specific cuisine. If you are writing your first kitchen CV and want it looking sharp fast, you can build it on a clean, one-page template and drop your own stations and covers in.
What to Include in a Commis Chef Resume
A commis CV is short by design. Include the sections a head chef actually scans, and cut the rest:
A three-to-four line summary naming your cuisine, the stations you have run, and where you want to go next.
Experience listed by kitchen, each with the restaurant type and covers, and 3-5 bullets naming sections and service duties.
Food safety credentials up top: Level 2 Food Safety/Hygiene or ServSafe, plus allergen awareness if held.
A tight skills block splitting kitchen sections and techniques from the temperament chefs hire for.
Culinary training - an NVQ, City & Guilds diploma, catering college, or apprenticeship - even if unfinished, because it signals grounding in technique.
Availability and flexibility (split shifts, weekends, willingness to stage) - practical facts a chef needs before calling you in.
Extra tips
If you cooked in a Michelin, AA Rosette or high-covers kitchen, say so by name.
A chef reads it as proof you can hold pace and standards, not just clock shifts.
Commis Chef Resume Summary Examples
Your summary is the first three lines a chef reads. These add angles the sample doesn't - a first-role starter and a commis ready to step up - so you can pitch to your own level:
Entry-level resume summary example
Catering-college graduate and newly qualified commis chef with a Level 2 Diploma in Professional Cookery and hands-on placement experience across larder and prep sections in a busy 90-cover brasserie. Confident on knife skills, mise en place and stock-making, and used to working clean to HACCP standards through a full Saturday service. Holds a Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene certificate and an allergen awareness award. Calm taking direction from the chef de partie, quick to learn a new dish, and reliable on split shifts and weekends. Looking for a first full-time commis role in a kitchen that trains its young cooks properly and gives a clear path toward a section of my own.
Mid-level resume summary example
Commis chef with three years across fine-dining and gastropub kitchens, holding the larder and grill sections through services of up to 140 covers a night. Strong on prep to par, plating to spec at the pass, and keeping a station spotless and fully HACCP-compliant even when the book is full and the tickets are stacked. Trained in classic technique from scratch stocks and sauces to butchery and fish-prep basics, and trusted to cover the sauce or fish section whenever the brigade is short-handed. Level 2 Food Safety certified with allergen awareness and HACCP knowledge kept current. Reliable, quick to learn a new dish, unflustered under the dinner rush, and now pushing toward a demi chef de partie role in an ambitious kitchen with a serious head chef to learn from.
Senior-level resume summary example
Demi chef de partie stepping up from three years as a commis in AA Rosette and hotel-restaurant kitchens, comfortable running the sauce or larder section solo through 160-cover services on a menu that changes with the seasons. Deep on classic French and modern British technique - mother sauces, butchery, fish preparation and refined plating - with a consistent record of holding standards and speed at the pass under a demanding head chef. Level 2 Food Safety certified, HACCP and allergen trained, and used to mentoring incoming commis on prep discipline, knife skills and cleanliness so the section runs tight. Organised, calm and precise in the weeds of a full service, and now ready for a chef de partie post in a kitchen chasing a rosette or a Bib Gourmand.
Commis Chef Work Experience Examples
Bullets should name the section, the volume and the standard held - not just 'helped in the kitchen'. Borrow the shape of these, tailored to your own stations and covers:
Entry / first kitchen role
- Ran mise en place for the larder section ahead of service, prepping salads, dressings and cold starters to par for a 90-cover restaurant so the section stayed stocked through a full Friday and Saturday book.
- Executed knife work and vegetable prep to the head chef's exact spec, learning precision cuts, brunoise and portioning fast enough to be trusted on garnish and cold-starter plating within the first three months on the section.
- Maintained a clean, HACCP-compliant station throughout service, logging fridge temperatures and following FIFO stock rotation to keep the kitchen through every environmental health visit without a fault.
- Supported deliveries and daily prep lists, checking stock in against orders, rotating produce on a FIFO system and flagging shortages to the sous chef early so the whole brigade started each service fully set up and on time.
Commis chef / multi-section
- Held the grill and larder sections through services of up to 140 covers, plating to spec at the pass and keeping tickets moving during the dinner rush without dropping consistency or timing.
- Prepared scratch stocks, sauces and fresh pasta daily to the kitchen's recipes, scaling quantities to forecast covers and cutting waste by prepping to an accurate par rather than over-producing.
- Covered the fish and sauce sections whenever the brigade was short-handed, picking up unfamiliar stations and their prep quickly enough to become the head chef's regular first call to fill a gap on an understaffed night.
- Kept full HACCP compliance and a spotless station under pressure, running temperature checks, allergen separation and end-of-service deep cleans that held up through every hygiene audit.
Demi chef de partie / stepping up
- Ran the sauce section solo through 160-cover services in an AA Rosette kitchen, firing mains to the pass in sync with the larder and grill to keep whole tables leaving the kitchen together.
- Butchered and portioned proteins and filleted whole fish to spec each morning, managing yield and portion consistency across a changing seasonal menu that the head chef rewrote every few weeks to follow the market.
- Mentored two incoming commis on prep discipline, knife skills and station cleanliness, lifting the section's setup speed and freeing the chef de partie to focus fully on service during peak covers.
- Owned ordering and stock control for the section, negotiating short-dated produce into specials and holding food cost on target across a busy summer season of consistently full books and tight margins.
Top Commis Chef Skills
Split what you can cook and clean from how you hold up in the weeds - chefs read both. Lead with the sections and techniques you can actually run:
Knowing which sections and certificates to lead with is half the job; getting them onto one clean page is the other half. Drop your stations, covers and food-safety credentials into a one-page template chefs can skim before a shift.
Hard skills
- Mise en place
- Knife skills and precision cuts
- Fresh pasta making
- Stock and sauce preparation
- Larder / garde manger section
- Grill and sauté section
- Fish preparation and filleting
- Butchery and portioning basics
- Plating to spec
- Portion and yield control
- HACCP compliance
- Allergen management
- Food storage and FIFO stock rotation
- Temperature control and probing
- Prep list and par execution
- Deep cleaning and kitchen sanitation
- Recipe scaling
- Pass and service timing
- Dessert and pastry basics
Soft skills:
- Composure under pressure
- Eagerness to learn
- Stamina
- Teamwork
- Reliability
- Taking direction
- Speed
- Attention to detail
Certifications for a Commis Chef
For a kitchen role the food-safety certificate is close to non-negotiable; the culinary qualification is what marks you out as trained rather than picked-up. The credentials that actually carry weight:
-
Level 2 Award in Food Safety and Hygiene for Catering
— Highfield Qualifications Effectively required to work a section in a UK kitchen; many employers won't roster you without it. Also awarded by RSPH and CIEH.
-
ServSafe Food Handler
— National Restaurant Association The US equivalent - required by law in many states before you handle food commercially.
-
Level 2 Diploma in Professional Cookery (NVQ)
— City & Guilds Optional but the standard grounding for a commis; proves formal technique training and often runs alongside an apprenticeship.
-
Level 2 Award in Allergen Awareness
— Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) Optional and increasingly expected - allergen law is enforced and chefs value cooks who understand cross-contamination.
-
Craft Guild of Chefs accreditation
— Craft Guild of Chefs Optional professional recognition that signals commitment to the craft and connects you to the wider chef community.
Common Commis Chef Resume Mistakes
Most commis CVs get binned for the same few reasons. Avoid these and you are ahead of half the pile:
- Writing 'assisted in the kitchen' instead of naming the sections and stations you actually ran - chefs can't roster a vague CV.
- Leaving food hygiene certification off or burying it at the bottom, when many chefs treat it as a gate before they read on.
- Listing every restaurant job you've ever had with no mention of cuisine, covers or standard, so a chef can't gauge the level you cook at.
- Inventing metrics a commis wouldn't own - food-cost percentages and P&L numbers belong to a head chef, and faking them reads as a lie.
- Running to two pages with hobbies and a paragraph-long profile; a commis CV should fit one page a chef can skim before a shift.
- Hiding your ambition - not saying you want the next section makes you look like a rota-filler rather than a cook worth training.
Commis Chef Resume FAQs
The questions aspiring commis chefs most often ask when writing their CV:
Lead with the kitchen sections and techniques you can run - mise en place, knife skills, larder, grill, sauce, fresh pasta, stock-making - plus HACCP and allergen knowledge. Then add the temperament chefs hire for: composure under pressure, stamina, reliability and eagerness to learn the next station.
You can start with no formal qualifications, but a food hygiene certificate (Level 2 Food Safety in the UK, ServSafe in the US) is close to essential and a culinary NVQ, City & Guilds diploma or apprenticeship helps a lot. On a CV, list any catering training even if unfinished - it signals grounding in technique.
Lead with your catering training, placements and any food hygiene certification, then show transferable kitchen exposure - work experience, a stage, even kitchen-porter or front-of-house shifts. Name the sections you helped on and stress that you are certified, reliable and hungry to learn a station of your own.
One page. A commis or demi CV is skimmed by a chef in the minutes before a service, so keep it tight - a clear summary, your kitchens by section and covers, food-safety credentials and a short skills block. Save the detail for the trial shift.
Name your cuisine, the sections you have run and where you want to go next in three to four lines. For example, the stations you hold, the covers you cook to, that you are food-hygiene certified, and that you are pushing toward demi chef de partie - concrete facts a head chef can act on.
List each kitchen with its cuisine, restaurant type and covers per service, then write verb-first bullets naming the section and what you did - 'Held the grill section through 140-cover services, plating to spec at the pass'. Specific sections and volume beat generic 'food preparation' every time.
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