A banquet chef is responsible for overseeing food preparation and catering events and ensuring high-class quality and constituency at all times. He or she is also in charge of planning, organizing, controlling, and directing employees in the Banquet kitchen department of a commercial establishment. A banquet chef is expected to learn and master the flavors and techniques of different dishes and to always ensure the kitchen is a tidy and clean environment to work in.
Banquet chefs commonly work in hotels, resorts, and country clubs. They take part in creatively putting together a menu for clients in these establishments. In order to succeed in their role, they should have extensive culinary knowledge and experience, attention to detail, creativity, communication skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, and people management skills.
Banquet chefs work 40 hours a week in 12-hour shifts. They may be required to work additional hours during peak hours when the establishments record high numbers of clients.
Banquet Chef Overview
Banquet Chef Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a banquet chef. For example, did you know that they make an average of $21.7 an hour? That's $45,138 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 11% and produce 15,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Banquet Chef Do
There are certain skills that many banquet chefs have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed business skills, communication skills and creativity.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a banquet chef, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.5% of banquet chefs included banquet functions, while 8.7% of resumes included food preparation, and 7.9% of resumes included food safety. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the banquet chef job title. But what industry to start with? Most banquet chefs actually find jobs in the hospitality and professional industries.
How To Become a Banquet Chef
If you're interested in becoming a banquet chef, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 17.4% of banquet chefs have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.2% of banquet chefs have master's degrees. Even though some banquet chefs have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a banquet chef. When we researched the most common majors for a banquet chef, we found that they most commonly earn associate degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on banquet chef resumes include high school diploma degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a banquet chef. In fact, many banquet chef jobs require experience in a role such as sous chef. Meanwhile, many banquet chefs also have previous career experience in roles such as executive chef or chef.
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Banquet Chef Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of executive chef you might progress to a role such as general manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title director of food and beverage.
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Average Salary for a Banquet Chef
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Gecko Hospitality Banquet Chef Banquet Chef | Gecko Hospitality Gecko Hospitality | 07/15/2020 07/15/2020 | $75,00007/15/2020 $75,000 |
Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Banquet Chef Banquet Chef | Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Hershey Entertainment and Resorts | 03/03/2020 03/03/2020 | $65,00003/03/2020 $65,000 |
Gecko Hospitality Banquet Chef Banquet Chef | Gecko Hospitality Gecko Hospitality | 02/18/2020 02/18/2020 | $75,00002/18/2020 $75,000 |
Hutchinson Consulting Banquet Chef Banquet Chef | Hutchinson Consulting Hutchinson Consulting | 11/30/2019 11/30/2019 | $60,00011/30/2019 $60,000 |
Goodwin Recruiting Banquet Chef Banquet Chef | Goodwin Recruiting Goodwin Recruiting | 10/29/2019 10/29/2019 | $65,00010/29/2019 $65,000 |
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Banquet Chef Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Banquet Chef. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Banquet Chef Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Banquet Chef resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Banquet Chefs
1. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
2. University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, OH • Public
3. Drexel University
Philadelphia, PA • Private
4. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
5. Georgetown University
Washington, DC • Private
6. Southwest Minnesota State University
Marshall, MN • Public
7. Inter American University of Puerto Rico Ponce
Mercedita, PR • Private
8. University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH • Public
9. Monroe College
Bronx, NY • Private
10. SUNY College of Technology at Delhi
Delhi, NY • Public
Top Skills For a Banquet Chef
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 17.5% of banquet chefs listed banquet functions on their resume, but soft skills such as business skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Banquet Functions, 17.5%
- Food Preparation, 8.7%
- Food Safety, 7.9%
- Menu Items, 7.5%
- Quality Standards, 7.0%
- Other Skills, 51.4% See All Banquet Chef Skills
Best States For a Banquet Chef
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a banquet chef. The best states for people in this position are Hawaii, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. Banquet chefs make the most in Hawaii with an average salary of $72,482. Whereas in Delaware and New Jersey, they would average $62,145 and $60,649, respectively. While banquet chefs would only make an average of $59,417 in New York, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Nevada
$57,718
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$59,310
Avg. Salary
3. Georgia
$54,593
Avg. Salary
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