Culinary Lead / Product Development Chef – QSR & Cloud Kitchen

About the role

A newly established and rapidly expanding QSR and cloud kitchen group in the UAE is developing multiple food concepts designed for scale across the GCC. It is recruiting a Culinary Lead / Product Development Chef through its exclusive recruiter, Black Pearl. The role covers menu innovation, recipe creation, product development and culinary standardization across several QSR concepts, combining creativity with operational execution.

Key responsibilities

• Research and create new menu items aligned with brand positioning and regional trends, across Indian, Asian, fast-casual, sandwich, roll and fusion cuisines, and benchmark against Dubai's QSR and cloud kitchen competitors.
• Create detailed recipe specifications (ingredients, methods, yields, timings, plating and packaging) and turn complex recipes into simple, repeatable SOPs with standardized portions and cost-effective structures.
• Lead tasting panels, maintain quality, taste, texture and presentation standards, and work with QA on food quality parameters.
• Evaluate and approve raw materials, ingredients and packaging, and help select and train vendors or co-packers for outsourced production.
• Scale recipes to central kitchen batch production, build SOPs for preparation, cooking, assembly, storage and dispatch, and run periodic kitchen audits.
• Design products suitable for frozen, retort, preservative-based, emulsified or hot-fill processes, working with operations and supply chain on shelf-life and production constraints.

Required profile

• 5-10 years of experience as an R&D Chef, Culinary Lead, Innovation Chef, Head Chef or similar.
• Strong background in QSR, cloud kitchens, fast-casual brands or large-scale production kitchens.
• Ability to balance creativity with cost control and operational feasibility.
• Experience with commercial manufacturing technologies (retort, frozen, preservative-based products, hot-fill).
• Familiarity with UAE food safety standards (HACCP, Municipality guidelines) preferred.