Clay Restaurant is recruiting a Brand Chef / Executive Chef based in Ubud, Bali to oversee culinary direction, kitchen team management, and food execution for a newly launched restaurant concept. The position calls for someone capable of shaping a destination dining experience rather than merely managing a kitchen operation. Candidates must possess serious technical skill, strong leadership qualities, comprehensive product knowledge, deep familiarity with fire-based cooking, systems-building ability, and a distinct creative vision—food so compelling that guests will travel across Bali specifically to try it. The role demands someone who combines exceptional taste with firm kitchen discipline, creativity without unnecessary complexity, thorough knowledge of fire and traditional cooking methods, premium product understanding, visually stunning presentation, operational control, food cost awareness, team leadership, consistency at scale, and the capacity to translate a culinary concept into a recognizable restaurant identity. Clay is a premium restaurant and lounge in Ubud, Bali, inspired by the ancient Silk Road, built around fire, earth, clay, bread, spices, culture, and hospitality. The structure is constructed almost entirely from terracotta, natural materials, and clay. The kitchen remains open and visible—guests witness fire, bread from the tandoor, meat and vegetables cooking over the mangal, and clay pots emerging from the oven. The aroma of fire, bread, and spices is woven into the dining experience. The establishment aims to become one of the strongest dining experiences in Ubud rather than simply another attractive Bali restaurant. Its philosophy divides into two spaces: downstairs is the restaurant with open fire, energy, food, sharing, and kitchen theatre; upstairs is a calmer lounge with carpets, pillows, low light, tea, cocktails, and hookah in an intimate Moroccan-inspired setting. One evening, two worlds. The food concept draws from the historic Silk Road's cultural exchange, inspired by Uzbekistan, Central Asia, Turkey, Georgia, Persia, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Greece, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Rather than creating a museum of traditional cuisine or pursuing random fusion, the goal is to distill the soul, ingredients, techniques, and hospitality of these regions into a modern, premium, and highly recognizable Clay identity that feels born from fire, earth, clay, spices, and ancient cooking traditions. Fire is the heart and soul of the kitchen, not merely one technique among others. The kitchen will employ tandoor, mangal/charcoal grill, wood-fired oven, open-flame cooking, slow roasting, clay-pot cooking, smoking, and traditional fire methods. The open kitchen must become part of the restaurant's theatre, with bread, meat, vegetables, fish, and clay-pot dishes creating visual moments throughout service. The food must be memorable. Great restaurant food must first be delicious—technique exists to improve flavour, not to impress other chefs. Dishes should be sophisticated yet understandable, premium yet generous, traditional in roots but contemporary in execution, beautiful enough to photograph but never designed only for Instagram. The chef is expected to develop several true hero dishes that become part of the restaurant's identity—not twenty forgettable dishes, but five to ten dishes that become legends. Clay is built around people gathering around a table. The menu should encourage sharing, with bread hot from the tandoor, dips, vegetables, fire dishes, meats, and clay pots filling the table. The experience should feel generous and abundant without becoming heavy or unsophisticated. The Brand Chef / Executive Chef holds both creative and operational leadership of the kitchen, covering culinary direction (developing and protecting the culinary identity, building the complete food philosophy around the Silk Road and fire-based concept, creating signature dishes and hero products, developing breakfast/lunch/dinner menus as needed, seasonal dishes and specials, plating and presentation standards, working with local ceramicists and the design team on custom serving pieces, ensuring food visually belongs to Clay's architecture and atmosphere, and continuously improving the menu based on guest feedback and sales performance); fire and technique (establishing strong standards around tandoor, mangal, wood-fired oven, and clay-pot cooking, training the kitchen team in fire management and consistency, creating dishes where fire genuinely improves flavour, developing strong meat, fish, vegetable, and bread programmes, understanding slow cooking, roasting, grilling, smoking, and fermentation where relevant); product (setting premium ingredient standards, building trusted supplier relationships, working intelligently with Bali and Indonesian produce while protecting the cuisine's identity, defining where imported products are necessary and where excellent local alternatives suffice, maintaining strong quality without losing commercial logic, with no compromise on key ingredients but an expectation to distinguish quality from unnecessary waste); kitchen leadership (recruiting and building a strong kitchen brigade, establishing clear hierarchy and accountability, training sous chefs, CDPs and junior chefs, creating recipe cards and preparation standards, building opening and closing procedures, establishing mise-en-place systems, controlling hygiene and food safety, creating daily quality-control routines, and building a kitchen culture based on discipline, respect, and professionalism); operations (the chef must be equally comfortable discussing flavour and numbers, covering food cost control, purchasing, inventory, wastage, yield management, portion control, labour efficiency, kitchen scheduling, recipe costing, stock management, supplier control, kitchen equipment, and production planning—creativity without operational discipline is insufficient for this role); and service and guest experience (understanding how food interacts with service, storytelling, lighting, music, table presentation, cocktails, tea, hookah, and the transition from dinner downstairs to the lounge upstairs, with occasional guest interaction at VIP tables, media, or special events requiring professional brand representation). The ideal candidate has a proven record in serious restaurants, with experience combining premium restaurants, destination restaurants, high-end hospitality, modern Middle Eastern cuisine, Turkish cuisine, Central Asian cuisine, Mediterranean cuisine, fire-led restaurants, open kitchens, and high-volume premium operations. Experience in the Middle East, Europe, major Asian hospitality markets, or internationally recognized restaurant groups is highly valued. Required qualities include technical strength (deep understanding of product, seasoning, heat, texture, timing, fermentation, meat, fish, vegetables, sauces, and fire—not just presentation or recipes), creativity (turning historical and regional inspiration into contemporary food without losing its soul), operational capability (running a kitchen under pressure, controlling food cost, organizing production, building systems, delivering the same dish perfectly on a quiet Tuesday and a full Saturday night), leadership (building chefs rather than commanding cooks, creating standards, correcting mistakes, developing people, leading from the kitchen), commercial intelligence (understanding that a successful restaurant needs both creativity and profitability, knowing how to create menu architecture, hero products, and dishes people want to order again), and obsession with detail (temperature, seasoning, plating, cleanliness, timing, ceramics, garnish, pass organization—every detail matters). The role is not suitable for someone seeking a comfortable chef position where the menu and systems already exist, who relies mainly on others' recipes, who prioritizes complicated techniques over flavour, who cannot manage food cost, who cannot train and control a large team, who loses consistency during busy periods, who believes beautiful plating compensates for average taste, who is uncomfortable with open fire, or who needs constant direction from ownership to move forward. Success means building a food programme that becomes one of the reasons Clay is known across Bali—signature dishes people recognize immediately, excellent guest reviews specifically mentioning the food, strong food-cost control, extremely consistent execution, a disciplined kitchen team, a recognizable Clay culinary identity, dishes generating organic content and word of mouth, and guests returning because they genuinely crave the food. The ultimate test: would someone drive 40 minutes across Bali specifically to eat at Clay? Clay has been designed with enormous attention to architecture, atmosphere, and guest experience, and the culinary programme must operate at the same level. The establishment is not looking for an average Executive Chef or someone who is good enough, but a chef with the ability, ambition, and discipline to build something exceptional from the beginning. Location: Ubud, Bali Position: Brand Chef / Executive Chef Concept: Premium Silk Road inspired fire-led restaurant & lounge Cuisine: Central Asia / Turkey / Georgia / Persia / Middle East / Eastern Mediterranean Style: Modern & Traditional / Premium but warm / Fire-driven / Sharing / Destination Dining Only exceptional candidates with relevant experience will be considered.

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