Overview
Are you a passionate culinary professional eager to bring genuine home-cooked Polish food to a vibrant, health-focused café? Success Café & Kitchen is reopening after a full refurbishment on 1 October 2026, and we're building our kitchen around real, protein-led Polish home cooking — not another standard café menu. If you thrive in a fast-paced kitchen and want to help shape a brand-new food concept from the ground up, this is the role for you.
About us
Success Café & Kitchen is a well-loved café and co-working space on New Walk, Leicester, trading under "Sip. Work. Succeed." (4.8/5 from 132 Google reviews, 3,300+ Instagram followers). We're hiring two chefs to lead our new kitchen — built around healthy, home-style Polish food inspired by Zielona Pietruszka (Zgorzelec).
Our food philosophy
A healthy buffet inspired by Polish home cooking, with a real focus on Polish-style salads — genuinely different from anything else out there (fresh, vegetable-forward, not heavy mayo-based salads). Out of respect for our Muslim and Indian customers, our proteins are chicken and turkey only — no pork. We also serve a daily Polish-style soup.
Duties
- Lead daily preparation of our hot buffet — chicken and turkey mains, pasta, potatoes, rice, Polish-style salads, and a daily Polish-style soup
- Run our weekend (Friday–Sunday) Polish street food menu — knysze, zapiekanki
- Prepare our "Fit Cakes" range — healthy, no-sugar cakes
- Help shape and refine the menu itself, bringing your own ideas and recipes as we develop the concept
- Ensure all dishes meet high standards of quality, presentation, and taste
- Maintain food safety protocols and full compliance with health regulations
- Coordinate with front-of-house staff for smooth, timely service
- Manage stock, ordering, and portioning to minimise waste
- Share shift responsibilities with a second chef, including rota-based weekend cover so no one works every weekend
Skills
- Experience cooking hearty, home-style Polish food (essential) — salads, soups, and traditional mains
- Comfortable working at pace for buffet-style service
- Strong food hygiene and safety knowledge
- Able to manage kitchen operations and coordinate with front-of-house
- Creative input welcome — we want a chef who helps build the menu, not just follow one
Start date & shifts
We need one chef starting 24 September 2026 — a week ahead of our public reopening — to help finalise the menu and test the new kitchen before launch. Shifts are rota-based, covering Monday to Sunday, with weekend cover shared between our two chefs.
Join us at Success Café & Kitchen, where your culinary talents help build something genuinely new — home-cooked, healthy, and inclusive food that Leicester hasn't quite seen before.
Pay: £15.00 per hour
Expected hours: 20.0 – 40.0 per week
Benefits:
- Company pension
- Discounted or free food
Work Location: In person
