Jobs at VENN

Chef de Partie

Position filled

A role for someone who can prep, cook, plate, serve dishes, and talk guests through what they are eating.

Role Chef de Partie Location Rua de Fernandes Tomás 345, Porto Format Kitchen + floor Languages Comfortable in Portuguese + English Schedule Full-time, 40 hours / week Net salary €1,000–€1,250 / month Health Médis (Option B) private insurance, paid by VENN

We've filled this role. Still want to cook with us? Write to [email protected]. We keep good notes on file.

hands finishing a dish, VENN kitchen
VENN Canteen, Porto

A small team.
A serious kitchen.

VENN is a fully plant-based tasting menu restaurant in Porto. We're trying to build a model of regenerative hospitality: a kitchen rooted in fermentation, live cultures, and a sourcing practice built on long-term relationships with growers and foragers, with a strong focus on northern Portugal.

Monika leads the kitchen. Jess is her second. We've now filled the third position in the brigade, five of us in the kitchen, all told.

plating in the VENN kitchen
chef grating over a bowl, VENN kitchen
tweezers finishing a dish, VENN kitchen
the pass at VENN Canteen

The role

You'll spend most of your time in the kitchen, cooking on a section, prepping, and contributing to menu development. During service, you'll also bring dishes to the table and explain them to guests: what's on the plate, who grew or foraged it, and the technique behind it.

Most of our guests come for the story as much as for the food, and we want someone who can hold both halves of that conversation.

Working in a kitchen this small changes how the work feels. There's no anonymous middle of the line. What you cook tonight reaches the table through your hands. When something works, the brigade sees it. When something doesn't, the brigade fixes it.

Prep is shared. Service is choreographed, not dictated. You'll run a section, develop dishes alongside Monika and Jess, and bring food to the dining room throughout the night. Two apprentices work beside us, and they'll learn from your hands as much as from anyone else's.

Who we're looking for

We're looking for someone with at least a year of experience in ambitious, technique-led cooking, and the curiosity to work within a kitchen where constraint becomes a source of invention. At VENN, cooking without animal products is not treated as a limitation, but as a discipline: one that asks more from vegetables, grains, legumes, seaweeds, ferments, oils, reductions, smoke, acidity, texture, and time.

Experience with fermentation, dehydration, fine pickling, smoking, koji, infused oils, reductions, or preservation will be especially relevant here. More important than any single technique is a willingness to think deeply about ingredients: where they come from, how they change through the seasons, and how much can be drawn from them before anything is wasted.

You'll need:

  • At least one year in a kitchen with comparable ambition, pace, and technical care
  • Comfortable in Portuguese and English, both used in every service
  • Confidence speaking with guests about dishes, ingredients, sourcing, and technique
  • A serious interest in seasonality, low-waste cooking, and the relationships behind each ingredient
hands preparing fresh herbs, VENN kitchen
herb salad dish, VENN Canteen
white beans with nasturtium flowers, VENN Canteen

What we offer

A kitchen genuinely at the edge of what plant-based cooking can do. Fermentation, koji, live cultures, smoking, dehydration: tools that matter here because the ingredients demand them. You'll work with produce that has a story worth knowing, and you'll be expected to tell it.

  • Net monthly salary between €1,000 and €1,250, depending on experience, including the additional service hours typical of our kitchen
  • Full private health insurance through Médis (Option B), fully paid by VENN
  • Coverage highlights: hospitalization up to €30,000, outpatient consultations, exams and treatments up to €2,500, mental health (20 psychotherapy sessions, 20 days inpatient), maternity €2,000, unlimited second medical opinion
  • Full-time, 40 hours per week
  • When you travel with us for events in Portugal or abroad, your travel and accommodation are on us
  • A role connected to the wider VENN project: PATIO, our biodiversity courtyard; EAT.BITZ, our digital storytelling platform developed with Genomic Gastronomy; and a broader network of farmers, foragers, designers, researchers, and makers exploring what regenerative hospitality can become in Portugal.
foraged roots and herbs, VENN Canteen
Working with us

What comes with the job.

We're a small team and we think carefully about how we work together. These apply to everyone at VENN.

Dining · 6× / year

Friends & family dining

Six times a year, the people close to you get 50% off food at VENN. Pass the benefit to whoever you want. They book, they come, they eat at half price.

Dining · 4× / year

Quarterly experience meal

Four times a year, come in as a guest with someone close. Your partner, a parent, whoever you want to bring. You eat the full menu. We cover the bill.

Team · Annual

Annual team meal

Once a year, the whole team goes out to eat somewhere together. We choose the restaurant together. VENN covers it.

Growth

Learning & development

If it connects to the work (a producer visit, a day on a farm, a course, a research trip), we'll look at it seriously. No fixed budget. We decide together.

Drinks · At cost

Cost-price wine & drinks

Staff can buy wines and non-alcoholic beverages from our list at cost price.

Health

Private health insurance

Full private health cover through Médis, fully paid by VENN from day one.