Line Cook II (Culinary Specialist II)

About the role

The Opportunity:

The Culinary Specialist II will have the opportunity to prepare food for our guests, utilizing fresh, locally sourced ingredients. You will ensure that our high standards of excellence are maintained throughout our kitchens, keeping our inventories and facilities clean, organized, and up-to-date. As a member of our team, you will take pride in exceeding the expectations of all of our customers and keeping the Trojan spirit alive!

Responsibilities

• Provide customer services to faculty, staff, students, and guests. Ensure the highest level of customer satisfaction without unnecessarily referring customer to other staff members. Maintain friendly, helpful demeanor. Provide timely options for customers with specialty diets or dietary restrictions.
• Cook and prepare food according to chef/managers direction to specific quality, quantity, appearance, and temperature.
• Ensure all food goods are utilized to maximum yield, reduces waste, spoilage, and pilferage.
• Prepare food items for a la carte and special events food goods according to the recipe or instructions provided by the unit chef/manager. Ensure compliance and consistency with product, menu, and recipe specifications and on time production standards. Prepare high quality soups, sauces, salads, appetizers, dressings, stews, and desserts, including meat, game, seafood, poultry, starches, sauces, and vegetables daily for meal and service production in a timely manner.
• Maintain cleanliness and organization of facilities, kitchen common areas, stations, tools, kitchen small wares, and cooking equipment.
• Adhere to the kitchen sanitation program. Comply with standard food handling and sanitation procedures. Complete temperature and cooling logs as directed. Maintain working knowledge of classical and modern cooking techniques including but not limited to grill, fry, broil, roast, poach, blanch, and bake. Learn and execute new techniques applied to batch, prep, and a la carte menu items.
• Attend all required culinary trainings.
• Perform other related duties as assigned or requested.

Qualifications

• Minimum Education: Specialized or technical training.
• Minimum Experience: 3 years.
• Minimum Field of Expertise: Culinary School Certificate or Diploma from a Culinary Arts and Management nationally accredited school. Three years experience must include at least six months of prior experience as a USC Culinary Specialist or equivalent culinary experience in an external full service restaurant operation. Must successfully complete the culinary skills test administered by the Executive Chef.
• Knowledge of all kitchen equipment, small or large scale.
• Knowledge of both restaurant and catering/special event cooking.
• Demonstrated customer service experience.
• Experience working in a fast paced working environment.
• Knowledge of classical cooking techniques and modern cookery.
• Ability to effectively communicate in English.
• Knowledge of standard food handling and sanitation procedures.
• Ability to lift up to 50 lbs.

Preferred Qualifications

• PREFERRED EDUCATION: High School Diploma. Associate’s Degree from a Culinary Arts and Management school.
• PREFERRED EXPERIENCE: 4 years of experience in a restaurant, hotel, or high-volume banquet and catering environment.
• PREFERRED FIELD OF EXPERTISE: Ability to oversee student, temporary, and/or resource workers.

Benefits

The Trojan Family Rewards:

We pride ourselves in creating the BEST USC EXPERIENCE, and that begins with our employees! We offer a wide variety of benefits and programs that support our staff and their families. For more information please visit https://employees.usc.edu/benefits-perks/.