Hospitality

Chef jobs in India: commis to sous chef, and what each kitchen pays

Hotel kitchen, restaurant, QSR or cloud kitchen? How the kitchen ladder works, what moves your pay, and how cooks get to the Gulf or a cruise galley.

12 November 2026 · 8 min read

Picture two cooks who finished the same one-year food production course in Lucknow. One joins a five-star hotel as a Commis III at about ₹15,000 a month, peeling, portioning and cleaning a cold kitchen. The other joins a busy cloud kitchen at ₹20,000 as a line cook and runs a station within weeks. After three years, one of them is a chef de partie with a hotel brand on the CV and a Gulf offer; the other is a skilled cook who knows one menu very well.

Neither path is wrong. But kitchens are not interchangeable, and the first one you join shapes what you can do next. This piece explains the ladder, the kinds of kitchens hiring, what they pay, and the routes abroad.

The kitchen ladder

Professional kitchens in hotels and good restaurants follow the brigade system, and job titles follow it too:

Title	What you do	Typical time in the role
Kitchen helper, steward	Washing, cleaning, carrying, basic prep	Entry, no training needed
Commis III, II, I	Prep and cooking under a section head; three grades in many hotels	1 to 3 years in all
Demi chef de partie (DCDP)	Runs a station on a shift, trains commis	1 to 2 years
Chef de partie (CDP)	Owns a section: tandoor, Indian, continental, pastry, Asian, garde manger	2 to 4 years
Junior sous chef, sous chef	Runs the kitchen on a shift, ordering, rosters, food cost	3 to 5 years
Chef de cuisine, executive chef	Menus, budgets, the whole kitchen or several outlets	Senior

These were also the most common titles in Highlisted's data: of the 1,043 kitchen and culinary jobs open in mid-November 2026, Chef de Partie, Demi Chef de Partie, Commis and Sous Chef led the list. Only about 9% of the posts that stated experience took freshers, because kitchens hire their freshers mostly through campus, industrial training and walk-ins, and post the jobs that need experience.

Specialise early, but not too early

Kitchen job posts ask for a section, not just "cooking". In Highlisted's mid-November 2026 data, the skills kitchen posts named most were food safety (about 40%), bakery and pastry (about 16%), Indian cuisine and tandoor (about 11%), then continental and Asian cooking (around 4% each).

Indian and tandoor are the deepest market in India, with steady demand from hotels, restaurants and the Gulf.
Pastry and bakery is a separate craft with its own ladder, and a good pastry commis is hard to replace. It suits people who like precision and early mornings.
Continental, Italian and Asian sections open doors in premium hotels, standalone restaurants and abroad, but take longer to master.

Spend your commis years rotating if your kitchen allows it, then pick a section by your second or third year. A CDP who is strong in one section and competent in two is what sous chefs want.

Which kind of kitchen to join

Five-star and branded hotels. The best training, a recognisable brand, and a clear ladder; also the lowest starting pay and the most rigid hierarchy. The large hotel groups dominated kitchen hiring on Highlisted in mid-November 2026. A hotel name on your CV is what Gulf and cruise employers look for first.

Standalone and fine-dining restaurants. Smaller teams, faster responsibility, and you learn one cuisine deeply. Quality varies enormously: some are better schools than hotels, some are chaotic.

Quick-service restaurants and café chains. Standardised recipes and equipment, clear shift-supervisor ladders, and a strong focus on speed and hygiene. Good for people who want to move into outlet management rather than craft cooking.

Cloud kitchens. Many brands run from one kitchen for delivery apps. Pay at the start can be higher and you cook a lot, but the menus are narrow, the hours long, and the experience counts for less with hotels and overseas employers.

Institutional and industrial catering. Hospitals, corporate cafeterias, factories and campuses. Regular hours and steadier pay, less creative work. Good for cooks who want a family life.

What chefs earn

Hotel kitchen pay starts low and climbs with title. Of the kitchen and culinary jobs on Highlisted that stated pay in mid-November 2026, the median was about ₹2.4 lakh a year (32 posts), about ₹20,000 a month before deductions. That sample is small and mostly junior roles, so use it only as a sense of where entry and early CDP jobs sit; most kitchen posts don't state pay at all.

What decides your pay more than the brand is your title and your section. Moving from commis to CDP is the first real jump; sous chef is the second. Meals on duty are standard, accommodation is common in resorts, and some kitchens share service charge with staff.

Ask before joining: "Who decides when I move from Commis II to Commis I, and what did it take for the last person?"

Food safety: the certificates that count

Two FSSAI requirements touch every cook:

FoSTaC training. FSSAI requires licensed food businesses to have at least one trained and certified food safety supervisor for every 25 food handlers on a premises. The basic catering course is a day long and inexpensive. Holding it makes you useful to any kitchen and is close to essential for DCDP and above.
Medical fitness. Under Schedule 4 of FSSAI's licensing regulations, food businesses have to get food handlers medically examined, at least once a year, to rule out infectious diseases, and keep a record signed by a registered doctor. Expect a check-up and vaccination before joining.

Keep copies of your FoSTaC certificate, medical certificate and every experience letter. Overseas employers ask for them, and so do good hotels.

Getting the first kitchen job

Use your industrial training kitchen. The fastest first job is often in the hotel where you trained. Ask the sous chef before your training ends.
Walk in with your knives and a clean, short CV. Many kitchens hire on a trade test: knife cuts, a basic sauce, an omelette, a dough. Turn up on time and in clean whites.
Apply on hotel groups' own career pages in your city and the next nearest metro; Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Jaipur had the most kitchen openings on Highlisted in mid-November 2026.
Expect the trade test to matter more than the interview. Head chefs watch how you hold a knife, keep your station, and clean as you go.

Working abroad

Indian cooks are hired in the Gulf, the Maldives, Southeast Asia, Europe and on cruise ships, usually after two to five years in a known kitchen. Specialist tandoor and Indian chefs are in particular demand in the Gulf.

Use registered agents only. Agents recruiting for jobs abroad must be registered on the Ministry of External Affairs' eMigrate system. Check the registration number before you pay anything, and never hand over your passport to an unregistered agent.
Read the contract for hours and days off. Overseas kitchen contracts can run 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week. Know your salary, overtime rule, accommodation, food and return ticket terms before you fly.
Cruise galleys pay in dollars and give you food and a cabin, with very long days and contracts of several months. From 1 August 2026, DG Shipping changed who can get an Indian Continuous Discharge Certificate for hospitality work; check the route your agency uses against DGS Order 12 of 2026 before paying for STCW courses.

If an offer arrives on WhatsApp with a big salary and a "visa processing fee", paste it into our job check tool and read our guide to spotting fake job offers first.

Your checklist

Pick a section to grow in by your second or third year

Get the FSSAI FoSTaC basic catering certificate

Keep your medical fitness, course and experience certificates together

Ask how promotion between commis grades is decided

For jobs abroad, check the agent's eMigrate registration before paying anything

Questions people ask

What is the salary of a commis chef in India?

Commis pay sits at the bottom of the hotel pay scale and varies with the city and the commis grade; meals on duty are usual, and very few posts state pay, so ask for the monthly gross at the offer. Of the kitchen jobs on Highlisted that stated pay in mid-November 2026, the median was about ₹2.4 lakh a year, but that sample was only 32 posts.

How many years does it take to become a sous chef?

Often seven to ten years in total, though it varies a lot by kitchen: two to three as commis, one to two as demi chef de partie, two to four as chef de partie, then junior sous chef. People who move faster usually own a section well and train others.

Is a hotel management degree needed to become a chef?

No. Many chefs start with an ITI or diploma in food production or bakery, or straight from a kitchen helper role. A degree or diploma helps with trainee programmes and some overseas employers, but your trade test and experience letters matter most.

Is a cloud kitchen job good experience?

It gives you speed and volume, but on a narrow menu. If you want to grow into hotels or work abroad, try to add at least two years in a hotel or full-service restaurant kitchen.

Which country is best for Indian chefs?

The Gulf countries hire the most Indian chefs, especially for Indian and tandoor sections, and cruise lines hire across all sections. Choose by the employer and contract, not the country: check hours, days off, accommodation and the agent's registration.

Written by the Highlisted Editorial Team; facts checked against the sources below. Job figures come from the open jobs on Highlisted (how we count).

See kitchen jobs from hotels and chains

Commis, chef de partie and sous chef openings from hotel groups, restaurants and cruise lines, read from their own career sites.

Open kitchen jobs

Sources (official first)