Company description

We are building a restaurant group dedicated to building a stronger, more resilient regional food system by driving economic value to local, regenerative growers & makers. Led by Baltimore’s only James Beard award-winning chef, Spike Gjerde, we manage restaurants, cafes, event businesses, canning & preservation, baking & pastry, and so much more in an effort to prove the economic viability of prioritizing local food in profitable and replicable businesses. Our work supports a cleaner environment, a stronger local economy, and a vibrant Baltimore city.

Job description

The Executive Pastry Chef will oversee all Bread, Pastry, and Pasta production along with Dessert Menus across the entire restaurant group, including managing pastry/baking for new openings. The right individual will have an openness and ideally experience working with locally grown and milled grains, especially whole wheat grains, local fresh and preserved fruits, and local dairy. The Pastry Chef must be able to research and develop recipes based on global cuisines with our sourcing, including Italian, coastal French, Basque, and Mediterranean. Additionally, the Pastry Chef will be a hands-on manager of daily production in our central production kitchen, supplying each restaurant with daily baked products. The Pastry Chef will animate the department with excellent ideas and execution, along with financial acumen and operations management.

Responsibilities:

• Manage daily production of all breads, savory baking, pastries, pastas, ice creams & gelatos, desserts, and cakes. Ensure efficiency and quality in production processes.

• Manage compelling and seasonally changing offerings for each restaurant business, including dessert menus, coffee shop baking, event menus, and retail bakery items.

• Develop recipes for each restaurant, upstreaming ideas and execution to Spike.

• Focus on our sourcing and supporting growers including working with local farmers, millers, and other departments including our canning kitchen operation.

• Manage holiday menus and order fulfillment, capturing demand for take-home baking.

• Communicate our offerings with restaurant chefs and managers, prioritizing educating team members about our products.

• Manage financial performance of the pastry program, including labor costs and food costs. Grow the topline of the business.

• Recruit, train, and manage ongoing performance of production team members.

Qualifications:

-5+ years working in a professional pastry kitchen

-Production kitchen & restaurant kitchen experience preferred

-Technical skills including scaling recipes, mixing, prep planning, baking, bread workflow, cake assembly, and lamination

-Cuisine experience with Italian, French, Spanish, and Mediterranean preferred

-Leadership experience required

Compensation

this position is: salaried, $75,000 - $100,000

Application instructions

Deadline

June 30, 2025