About Arena Hall
Arena Hall is a private members club opening in Austin in early 2027 — a space built for founders, operators, and high-caliber thinkers who show up not just to discuss the future but to build it together. A twenty-two-thousand-square-foot restored church on a fifty-thousand-square-foot campus, full member dining and bar service, an ambitious events programme, and a membership of people doing serious work in the world.
The kitchen is at the centre of the club's social life — not as a destination dining room, but as the engine of a daily food & social experience. The food philosophy is farm-to-table, local and organic wherever possible, sourced with integrity, prepared with care, and served in a way that makes people feel uplifted as well as nourished. The format is simple yet elegant.
The Role
The Head Chef leads the Arena Hall kitchen while remaining an active, daily part of it. This is a hands-on leadership role: you will develop the menus, build relationships with producers, manage food costs and kitchen systems — but you will also prep, cook and work service alongside your team.
We expect to open with a deliberately lean kitchen team, so we are looking for someone who enjoys the intimacy, discipline and resourcefulness of a small kitchen rather than someone accustomed to managing a large brigade from a distance.
The food itself should be sophisticated without being complicated: seasonal, local and organic wherever possible, nutritionally thoughtful, deeply ingredient-led and genuinely delicious. We want someone for whom conscious cooking is already second nature, not a philosophy they would need to learn.
The kitchen will also support more than daily member dining. Arena Hall will host private dining and meetings alongside a dynamic events programme, some of which will be catered. The Head Chef needs to build an operation flexible enough to move naturally across these different formats without compromising the quality or identity of the food.
The Head Chef reports to the F&B Director and works closely with the GM on the overall member experience.
What You Will Own
Menu & Concept
- Full menu development across all dayparts — morning, all-day bites, lunch, dinner
- Seasonal menu evolution driven by local ingredients and producers
- The all-day kitchen output for bar, courtyard, and living room
- Private dining, meetings and food for Arena Hall's events programme
- Saturday brunch — family-style, sharing, aligned to the food philosophy
- Designing menus and prep systems intelligently so a small team can deliver across different formats without compromising quality
Sourcing & Suppliers
- Build genuine working relationships with Austin and Texas farmers, ranchers, growers and artisan producers, allowing seasonality and exceptional local product to actively shape the menu
- Source locally, sustainably and organically wherever possible
- Understand the provenance of the ingredients and build relationships with the people producing them
- Ensure absolute quality of all ingredients
Operations
- Day-to-day kitchen management — two levels, coordinated workflow
- Main kitchen and upstairs prep kitchen
- Cook actively alongside the team through prep and service, particularly during peak periods and events
- Plan and execute food across member dining, bar and all-day service, private dining and meetings, and Arena Hall's events programme
- Build efficient prep, production and service systems appropriate for a lean kitchen team
- Food cost management within agreed targets
- Kitchen equipment specification and maintenance
- Health, safety, and hygiene standards
- Waste reduction
Team
- Lead, develop and evaluate the kitchen team while remaining an active part of the daily kitchen operation
- Build a kitchen culture of high standards, no ego, and genuine care for the food and the people eating it
- Pre-shift kitchen briefings — daily menu notes, prep priorities, quality standards
- Train the floor team on food knowledge
- Lead by working alongside the team, particularly when service demands it
What We Are Looking For
Experience
- Eight or more years of professional kitchen experience, with meaningful experience leading a kitchen, section or team
- We are open to exceptional Sous Chefs or Chefs de Cuisine ready to step into their first Head Chef position
- Demonstrated experience cooking within a conscious, seasonal, organic and nutritionally thoughtful food philosophy
- Deep experience with seasonal, produce-forward and ingredient-led cooking
- Strong understanding of vegetables and plant-forward food alongside excellent fish, meat and poultry cookery
- Ability to create sophisticated food through exceptional ingredients, restraint and technique rather than unnecessary complexity
- Demonstrated experience sourcing directly and responsibly from local farmers, growers and producers
- Experience opening or launching a kitchen operation preferred
- Experience working across different formats preferred — daily restaurant service, private dining and/or events
- Knowledge of the Austin and Texas producer landscape strongly preferred
Character — essential
- Believes deeply in the food philosophy and already cooks this way
- Hands-on — genuinely enjoys cooking and wants to remain close to the daily work of the kitchen
- Ego-free kitchen culture — leads by standard and example, not by authority
- Curious about ingredients — knows the provenance of what they cook and finds it genuinely interesting
- Collaborative — works with the F&B Director as a partner and is present with the floor team
- Resourceful — comfortable achieving a high standard with a deliberately lean team
- Calm and consistent — the kitchen at Arena Hall should feel like an extension of the club's culture: purposeful, warm, precise
- Community-minded — understands that the kitchen is part of a larger hospitality experience
What does not fit this role
- Someone who wants primarily to manage a kitchen rather than cook in it
- Someone who needs a large brigade, complex kitchen hierarchy or elaborate menu to feel fulfilled
- Someone coming primarily from mainstream or corporate hospitality without meaningful experience in seasonal, ingredient-driven and conscious cooking
- Someone whose identity is built on classical or fine-dining technique alone and cannot translate that discipline into relaxed, everyday food that people want to eat repeatedly
- Someone who cannot articulate why the food philosophy matters beyond taste
- Someone who has not cooked consciously — this is not a concept that can be adopted without genuine belief
- Someone who sees local, sustainable or nutritionally thoughtful cooking primarily as a trend rather than an established way of working
Timing & the Refurbishment
Arena Hall began a major structural and design refurbishment in July 2026, transforming the existing space into the environment described above — member dining and bar service, a prep kitchen, and event spaces across 50,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space, with a target opening of February 2027.
This role will be involved in the tail end of that process and is expected to be in place by Autumn 2026 at the latest — early enough to review and sign off on kitchen equipment specification, operational flow between kitchen levels, front-of-house layout, and service infrastructure before construction is locked.
Beyond the build, the role will lead the pre-opening preparation in full: supplier sourcing, team hiring, menu development, staff training, dry runs, and the founding member experience that launches the club. Candidates who are energised by the process of building something from the ground up will thrive here.