chef de cuisine

noun

chef de cui·​sine ˌshef-də-kwē-ˈzēn 

plural chefs de cuisine ˌshef(s)-də-kwē-ˈzēn 

: a chef who manages a professional kitchen

… chefs need chefs de cuisine to run their kitchens, from hiring and firing to choosing between chives and chervil as the garnish for a new dish. And some do a great deal more than that.

—Julia Moskin

And the titles change with each restaurant. The top chef might be called an executive chef or chef de cuisine. The second in command might also be known as chef de cuisine (if there's an executive chef) …

—Phil Vettel

Tony Bilson, who has had a succession of artistically successful but financially rocky restaurants in Sydney, has his name on the door, but Manu Feildel, the young chef de cuisine from France, does the day-to-day cooking, and he is good.

—Harvey Steiman

compare executive chef

Examples of chef de cuisine in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The big picture: The buzzy French-American establishment, which Demi's longtime chef de cuisine Adam Ritters launched in 2024, joins four other Twin Cities restaurants and chefs still in the running for the nation's top annual food awards. —Kyle Stokes, Axios, 2 Apr. 2025

A lot of the team at Addison, including chef de cuisine Jonathan Brambila (who started cooking at his family’s Tijuana taqueria), is Latino. —Andy Wang, Forbes, 4 Mar. 2025

Corey Chow, former chef de cuisine at Thomas Keller’s Per Se, passed along this recipe to Hwang. —Betty Hallock, Los Angeles Times, 9 Feb. 2025

Cervantes is chef de cuisine of Enrique Olvera’s modern Mexican restaurant Damian and its adjacent Ditroit Taqueria in the Arts District. —Stephanie Breijo, Los Angeles Times, 22 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, "head of the kitchen"

First Known Use

1798, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for chef de cuisine

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• aquamarine
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