Cookery Tutor

Vacancy: Cookery School Tutor

  Orchards Cookery is Recruiting Cookery Tutors for a Summer Season 2025 : There is a five minute video on the homepage of our website which gives you a really good insight to our set up and what we do: www.orchardscookery.co.uk/

We are looking for enthusiastic Cookery Tutors to join our dynamic team of 25 staff for a summer season training the future generations of chalet, villa, lodge, boat and private cooks in a lively fun but relaxed environment with no work to do at weekends.

We are lucky enough to have a fantastic team who spend lots of time together – this year our Assistants are nearly all returning to do another summer and many of our Tutors come back and work for us for years. 

Orchards Cookery specialises in training and recruiting chalet cooks to work in ski resorts (we also offer Off to University courses, and an Orchards Course, which is a general all-round cookery course).  

The five day and two week courses run all year round but we are a seasonal business so the numbers of students we train varies from eight to twenty-four students during our quieter months but increases up to forty-eight students in six separate kitchens from circa end of May / early June to October/ November time.  

Each Tutor is responsible for training eight students in their kitchen with the assistance of a Kitchen Assistant – we have six separate kitchens. 

We train our tutors to teach our courses and employ eight tutors each summer.

 The job is for someone who: Loves cooking and passing on their knowledge to others, enjoys a challenge, has lots of patience, has great people management skills, has lots of determination and is a natural teacher, all of which are needed to transform our students, most of whom are complete beginners, into great chalet cooks in just five days or two weeks!  There is a great sense of achievement in doing this, making the job very rewarding.

 It is essential that we maintain the high standard of teaching, dedication and enthusiasm that has made the cookery school so successful (we have won several cookery school awards when they were running including; “Cookery School of the Year”, “Best English Cookery School”, “Britain's Favourite Cookery School” as well as lots of other awards.  The job involves long hours Monday to Friday, but if you like working with young people, most of whom are great fun, the time flies by! 

Unusually for a hospitality / cooking / cheffing job YOUR WEEKENDS ARE TOTALLY YOUR OWN AND FREE to do as you wish – see friends and family or pursue your hobbies and interests – a real luxury in the world of hospitality!

Our students:  They all seem to be lovely and the vast majority find us through word of mouth.  A high percentage of our students are Gap Year students (17-19yrs) but we also get a lot of post university graduates looking to do ski seasons.. 

Work environment: A busy kitchen with eight students singing to music and chatting while they cook.  We have a relaxed, informal style of teaching which has proven very popular and successful.  Students tend to be great fun and keen to learn so there is a good atmosphere in the kitchen. 

Work location: We are situated on a farm in the UK, eight miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon on the Worcestershire Warwickshire Boarders (about 40 minutes south of Birmingham 1hr north of Oxford).  

Requirements

 ·    Anyone who has good cooking experience and has done at least one ski season as a chalet cook / chef can apply (If you’ve only done one season you will have lots of other cooking experience and / or be a qualified chef) but if you have done lots of seasons you don’t need any formal qualifications as we train our Tutors for the job.

· A natural ability to teach others.

·     Patience (you may be asked the same question ten times by the same person!)

·     Energetic and fun (you are front of house and you set the tone in the kitchen)

·     Flexible and adaptable (open to change due to course improvements or last-minute menu change due to food delivery problems or even last-minute dinner guests!)

·     Hard working (we have a work hard play hard ethos)

·     Enthusiasm (you are really encouraging while you teach)

·     Dedication, commitment and loyalty – we are a close team and everyone is expected to muck in and support the team.

·     You need to be prepared to teach our courses our way, we always welcome new ideas!

·     DBS (disclosure and baring service) enhanced check (standard for teaching positions), we can organise this. 

Salary   

Starting salary paid every 4 weeks, depending on experience (salary paid every four weeks) plus 3% of wages as pension after three months, a performance related bonus and holiday pay.  

Hours

Monday– Thurs           (Total: 11 hrs a day – this includes 4 hours of meal time)

8.30 – 2                       (5½ hrs) coffee break from 10.50 – 11.10, lunch 1.00 – 2.00

3 – 5.30                       (2½ hrs) tea is from 5 – 5.30        

6 – 9                            (3 hrs) dinner is at 7.30 

Friday                          (Total: 7 hrs)

8.30 – 2                      (5 hrs) coffee break from 10.50 – 11.10, lunch 1.00 – 2.00

2.30 – 4                       (1½ hrs) 

During the two week courses the students have the first Wednesday afternoon off and the second Wednesday evening off.  So on the first Wednesday Tutors have from 2-6pm off (working 8½ hours that day) and on the second Wednesday Tutors finish their day at 5pm (working 7½ hours that day). 

Hours may seem appear long but we consider breakfast, coffee breaks, eating lunch (1 hour), afternoon tea (½ hour) and dinner (1½ hours) each day as work – rather nice work, but never the less, you are on show and answering questions etc. 

If you are interested, please call Isabel on 01789 490 259 or/and email your CV, together with a photograph to [email protected]