HEAD CHEF — Launceston (Diverge Restaurant, Hotel Verge Launceston)
Launceston, Tasmania | Leadership role
Salary: circa $86,000
Diverge (Hotel Verge Launceston) is a 55-seat restaurant in a hotel.
We’re hiring a Head Chef who can run calm, capable service; train and support the team; and help shape our product proposition.
What it looks like
- Lead a small brigade (this is akin to running your own small business; you are not above dishes, prep, service, and cleaning. And you do have some level of menu engineering, costing, and wage control capacity in your chef trade skills).
· Facilitate a product proposition that’s honest, not fussy, and Tasmanian. Strongly support our “standard fare done well”, while lifting the overall standard across the board.
- Build a kitchen culture that stays calm and supported:
- No tantrums
- No pot-throwing
- No martyrs
- No dickheads
- Everyone takes breaks
- Keep FSS and regulatory obligations steady and improving .
Technique, training, and team reality
Our casual base in Launceston includes team members on visa pathways. If you can manage in this context and keep standards clear, you’ll land well here.
- Your learning curve will include our suppliers, what’s available, what it costs, and what we can realistically afford.
- Our equipment is well maintained, cleaning is already very good— we’re looking for someone who will keep it that way and tighten the system where it matters.
Hours / days / salary
- You can aim for a 76-hour fortnight through your preferred days and roster design.
- This is a compromise on salary because the role isn’t built around “high chaos, high cover counts.”
- The real pressure is being steady enough to deliver great food when occupancy doesn’t match demand.
The kind of restaurant we’re building (and the menu philosophy)
You’ll fit if you care about the gap between:
- “mass produced cheap and nasty”, and
- “a very high-end experiential meal”,
- with the opportunity to make the middle less vanilla.
A proposition we’re exploring (and we want you to debate and help shape):
- Authenticity: every plate has a named origin and an explained season.
- Accessibility: nightly options for both signature menus and affordable communal feasts.
- Education: guests leave knowing a producer, a technique, and a Tasmanian season.
- Reciprocity: visible investment back into the local food system and community (this is open to conversation, including Indigenous possibilities—subject to fit and respectful direction).
Market context (who we serve)
We’re “Hi-Vis Corporate”: Mon–Fri is where our demand lives.
Leisure is softer on weekends—we’ll fill when town is compressed with demand drivers.
Locals/residents are all welcome, but we’re not a big family / birthday / hen/buck venue.
Your cover letter should tell us (values + culture fit)
We’re looking for you to speak to:
- Good produce (and how you’d learn suppliers fast, with honesty about cost/availability)
- Solid technique (and how you and your team deliver consistent standard fare).
- Positive kitchen culture (calm leadership, support, zero tolerance for 1980s behaviour)
Why this role is different
- This is a small venue you can genuinely make your own.
- Hands-on role—not an “office director” position.
- Tassie owner and operated independent: no “big boys” corporate theatre.
How to apply
If this sounds like something you want to pursue, email your cover letter + CV to:
[email protected]
Pay: From $86,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
