Swissport
Culinary Lead - Pre-Flight Hospitality - London City Airport
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Do you want to be at the forefront of one of the most exciting and fastest growing sectors in Travel & Hospitality? If you have a passion for delivering world class guest experience, leading culinary colleagues and enjoy meeting new faces every day, then this is the role for you.
Operating since 1987, Aspire Lounges are an award-winning hospitality experience, that has grown to become Europe’s largest brand of Pre Flight Hospitality and second by scale globally. We serve over 6m+ customers worldwide within 100 + lounges and over 18,000 guests per day.
We deliver outstanding customer experiences, bringing sophistication to everyday travel, delivering our refreshed brand promise of ‘time well spent’.
We are seeking candidates for an exciting opportunity to join a high-flying team of hospitality professionals and to continually improve the Aspire Pre Flight Hospitality Lounge offering to meet our ambition of being the Best Lounge provider globally.
Job Summary:
As a Culinary Lead you will report to the Hospitality Lead and be the shift leader of the back of house team focusing on Stock Ordering and Replenishment, Food preparation and presentation along with all other aspects of Back of House hygiene to ensure guest expectations are met and exceeded, ensuring we consistently deliver Aspire’s People, Place and Provender hallmarks.
Your role is to maintain and ensure the back of house team are maintaining service excellence of the lounge, and ensuring a consistent, high-quality guest experience. You will amplify our people behaviours of Empathy, Efficiency and Discretion, ensuring every guest interaction reflects Aspire’s service standards and leaves guests feeling their time has been well spent.
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Responsibilities
Key responsibilities:
Culinary & Beverage:
- Working with the front of house team to ensure all food and beverage offerings are continually available.
- Prepare hot and cold food offerings to ensure the pantry is presented in a professional and clean manner.
- Ensure the quality of food is prepared according to all manuals to guarantee a consistently excellent standard of service.
- Ensure all food is stored, handled and packaged correctly.
- Always Follow the Operations Manual.
- Maintain records of temperatures and cleaning standards within the hygiene system.
- Assisting with Stock take, ordering and deliveries.
- Guide guests to food and drink options available including knowledge of dietary and allergen information across a variety of meat vegetarian and vegan dishes.
- Maximise revenue by preparing ancillary items for guests to purchase.
Other Duties:
- Loading and unloading of the dishwasher.
- Receive and store stock delivery and rotation.
- Waste away services following recycling procedures.
- Restocking of cleaned crockery.
- Maintaining high levels of hygiene in all areas
- Assist the Culinary team with retrieving stock required
- Assist the Culinary team with applying the Food Safety Management System consistently.
Adhoc reasonable requests by local leadership team will form part of your role. The list above is not exhaustive and is not intended to restrict the scope of the job but clearly define a starting point and may vary depending on location and local customer requirements.
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Qualifications
Essential Skills:
- Have a passion for the food service industry.
- Experience in high volume hospitality kitchen environment.
- Good numerical skills with a keen eye for attention to detail.
- Ability to work as part of a team or be self-motivated to complete tasks.
- Ability to follow processes and procedures and to apply flexibility when required.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
- Ability to build positive and trusting relationships with colleagues and guests
- Flexible approach to working hours (including early mornings, evenings and weekends).
- Flexible to work shifts covering XX:XX to XX:XX, 7 days per week.
Desirable Skills:
- Experience in hospitality or customer services with high levels of F&B focus.
- Computer literate, including use of payment systems and Microsoft Office.
- Additional languages.
Benefits:
- Free parking whilst at work.
- Industry recognised food safety training and qualifications to FSA L2.
- Industry recognised CPD opportunities with the Aspire Hospitality Academy.
- Comprehensive Employee Recognition scheme.
- Free meals and soft drinks during shifts.
- Swissport pension scheme with ability to self-contribute.
- 24-hour employee assistance programme.
- Full Wardrobe Provided.
- Discounted retail – Varies by Airport Outlet.
- Discounted access to Aspire Pre Flight Hospitality lounge network for family and friends.
- Potential for placements to other Lounges within the network.
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