The Baker’s Duck is a fast-growing, respected bakery producing high-quality pastries, bread, and savoury items for the Toowoomba, Queensland community. We are committed to craftsmanship, creativity, and fostering an environment where chefs can grow and refine their skills.
We are expanding our savoury pastry program and are seeking a highly skilled Savoury Chef with formal pastry training to join our production team. This is not a standard cook role. We are looking for a candidate with specialised experience in pastry-driven savoury production, advanced culinary knowledge, and a demonstrated ability to contribute to product development in a bakery environment.
About the Role
The Savoury Chef will work alongside our Head Pastry Chef to lead and grow our savoury offering, including pies, sausage rolls, laminated savoury pastries, and seasonal specials. This role requires a unique hybrid skill set across both cuisine and pastry disciplines, as well as:
- Experience working within professional pastry departments (hotels, fine dining, patisseries, or French-influenced kitchens).
- Ability to develop, test, and refine new savoury pastry products, including flavour development, dough quality, fillings, and bake consistency.
- Competency in producing large-batch savoury items while maintaining exceptional quality and precision.
- Skills to lead a small team within the pastry production environment, ensuring high standards of organisation, food safety, and workflow
- Strong understanding of mise en place systems, stock rotation, batch production, and maintaining efficiency in a high-volume kitchen.
Key Responsibilities
- Produce high-quality savoury pastries including pies, sausage rolls, galettes, quiches, larder items, and seasonal fillings.
- Execute production to specification while maintaining consistency in dough handling, lamination integration, seasoning, texture, and bake colour.
- Lead a small team within the savoury section, providing training, guidance, and quality control.
- Collaborate with the Head Pastry Chef on menu development, including testing new recipes, identifying market trends, and contributing to bakery innovation.
- Manage ordering, production planning, and daily prep lists for the savoury program.
- Uphold high standards of cleanliness, kitchen organisation, and food-safety practices within a pastry-department setting.
Required Skills & Qualifications
To ensure the specialised nature of this role, applicants must demonstrate:
- Formal culinary qualifications, ideally from a recognised institution (e.g., Le Cordon Bleu, French pastry programs, or equivalent).
- Minimum 2–3 years experience working in pastry departments within hotels, fine dining, or high-volume production kitchens.
- Proven ability to produce and develop savoury pastry items, including dough-based products.
- Experience training or leading junior chefs or working as a key section chef.
- Strong understanding of flavour balance, menu planning, and recipe development.
- Ability to work efficiently and calmly in a fast-paced production environment.
Highly Desirable
- Experience in both sweet and savoury pastry production.
- Background in French-influenced kitchens or culinary programs.
- Demonstrated involvement in product innovation, R&D, or menu creation.
- Experience in multi-section kitchens (larder, pastry, bulk prep, events).
Job Type: Full-time
Pay: $77,000.00 – $80,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
