School & Kitchen Assistant - The Jamie Oliver Cookery School

The Jamie Oliver Cookery School is growing. In spring 2025 were launching a flagship school – our second site – with John Lewis & Partners, in their Oxford Street store! As such, our team is expanding and were looking to grow our team.

The School & Kitchen Assistant is here to assist our team in running excellent cookery classes and excellent operations. Your key duties are kitchen management, food preparation, clearing down and general support.

Your drive and sense of urgency allow the team to rely on you for all tasks delegated to you. A successful School & Kitchen Assistant will help ease the pressure in shifts, and ensure the smooth running of operations.

Were looking for someone who is:

1. Passionate about food and hospitality
2. Shares our team culture
3. Hungry to learn and develop in a fast-paced environment

If the above sounds like you, you could be our perfect candidate!

Were looking for ambitious, food-obsessed candidates to join our team. Youll be a confident cook, and even more confident around people. Youll be a solid communicator, and a natural talking about food. Youll be tenacious, positive, and share our love of teaching and experiences.

WHAT DOES A SCHOOL & KITCHEN ASSISTANT DO:

As School & Kitchen Assistant, there are five key pillars of your role:

Excellent Kitchen Management

Youll be responsible for keeping the school kitchen in optimal working order:

• Orders. Sound putting-away of all deliveries in an organised manner, following FIFO, and treating all food with care.
• Fridges. Keeping the fridges clean, organised and following food hygiene standards.
• Cleaning. Pro-actively clearing and cleaning the kitchen so that it is an optimal place to prepare food

Excellent Food Preparation

An important part of your role will be supporting chefs with their food preparation.

• Basic cooking skills. Youll be required to carry out basic food preparation. Youll need safe knife skills to chop vegetables and meats. The ability to use food processors. To cook and cool simple ingredients. An organised manner in storing the prepared food.
• Sticking to run plans. The ability to follow run plans or instructions given, and deliver with reliability. As you gain experience, youll be expected to grasp and learn the details of our run plans.
• Attention to detail. The food preparation is rarely complex – most cooking will happen in the class. However it requires diligence – as mistakes in the preparation will disrupt the class.

Excellent Operation

Youre here to make our operations smoother, and provide support across the school:

• Support Kitchen Porter when theyre under pressure. It may be with drying, putting things away, or getting stuck in when theyre not there.
• Turn arounds. Supporting the Teaching Team with the turnarounds between classes – where speed and efficiency are critical.
• General order and cleanliness of school. Pro-active help and support where required with other operational aspects, such as laundry or stock management.

Food Safety, Hygiene & Health and Safety

• Food safety. Having taken Level 3 Food Hygiene Training, you must adhere to what youve learned at all times.
• HACCP & Health and safety. You will follow all HACCP guidelines, and healthy and safety requirements.
• Hygiene and presentation. Youll have a high level of respect and care for the businesses, and your own hygiene and presentation.

Embody Team Culture

At Jamie Olivers Cookery Schools, our ambition is to become the best cookery school in the UK. We want to inspire people to cook more, and immerse people into world class food experiences. To achieve this, we have a strong team working culture, that everyone plays a part in. You should embody our culture of:

• An obsession with the world of food. A curiosity to learn more and more.
• A passion for people. And a motivation to deliver memorable experiences.
• A drive for hard-teamwork. An intense pursuit of excellence. Always striving to grow, develop and improve – at a personal, team and business level.

ANYTHING ELSE

• The busiest time of our school is weekends and evenings – the role requires that you work weekend and evening shifts.
• This successful candidate will work a minimum of 20 hours per week, and up to 40 hours per week
• The successful candidates will be able to work in and around Central London including our current Jamie Oliver Cookery School based in North London.
• Our benefits package includes Health cash plan with Bupa, including 24/7 professional mental health support, pension via NEST and competitive holiday entitlement