Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Job description

Cook real food, from scratch, in a kitchen you help build.

If you love seasonal cooking, take pride in doing things properly and would like a real hand in shaping a new kitchen from day one, Dee could be your place.

Dee is an independent neighbourhood cafe opening in Barnes this autumn. We cook from scratch with natural ingredients, source most of our food from UK farms, and take seriously the connection between what people eat and how the land is treated. We're not a corporate operation. We're two people, Olessia and Antonio, opening something we believe in.

What we offer

• A place in our opening kitchen team, with real input into our seasonal dishes
• The chance to learn from our head chef as the menu develops through the seasons
• Good UK produce and direct relationships with the farms and suppliers behind it
• Staff meals and a staff discount
• A small, friendly team where your ideas are heard

The role: Sous Chef / Chef de Partie

You'll work under the direction of our head chef, helping to develop and deliver a seasonal menu of nourishing, everyday dishes, all cooked from scratch with natural ingredients. Much of our kitchen runs on batch cooking and careful prep, so organisation and attention to detail matter as much as flair on the day.

You'll help us find practical ways to minimise waste, keep standards high and consistent, and make the kitchen a calm, good place to work, for you and for the team around you.

What we're looking for

Essential

• Professional kitchen experience at Chef de Partie level or above
• Confidence with batch cooking, prep and cooking from scratch

Nice to have

• Experience with seasonal menus, sourcing or reducing food waste. If you haven't worked in a sustainability-focused kitchen before, that's fine, as long as it genuinely matters to you

Who you are

• Calm, reliable and organised
• Detail-minded, curious about ingredients and keen to keep learning
• A team player who enjoys working closely with others, front of house included

What Dee stands for

• Food that nourishes people and is honest about the planet
• 60%+ of our ingredients sourced from UK farms
• A menu that evolves gently with the seasons, towards more plant-forward options over time
• A space that belongs to the neighbourhood, Barnes and beyond
• Service that feels human, never corporate

We don't preach about any of this. We just try to do it properly, and we'd like a kitchen team who feel the same way.

The details

• Location: Barnes, SW13, South West London
• Hours: shifts between 6:00am and 6:00pm
• Full-time
• Pay: from £16 per hour, based on experience
• Start: autumn 2026, ahead of opening

Application information

If Dee sounds like your kind of place, we'd love to hear from you.

Send a short introduction telling us a little about yourself and why Dee, along with your CV or a written note on your kitchen experience so far.

Email us at hello@dee.cafe

We're a small team opening something new, and every application will be read by one of us personally. We'll be in touch.

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs