We put people through food safety, prep discipline, equipment handling and service pressure before they ever walk into your kitchen. Employers get someone who can hold a section on day one. Candidates get a trade, not a shift agency.
We are a kitchen specialist, not a general staffing agency. Everyone on our books is training for or working in back of house, which is why our shortlists are short and our chefs stop asking for a second one.
The backbone of any section. Prep, portioning, restocking, temperature logs and clean-as-you-go. Our largest placement category and the usual first step for people new to the trade.
For candidates who have knife confidence and want a section of their own. We place into larder, veg and starters, always under a chef de partie who has agreed to actually teach.
Machine operation, chemical dilution and safety, waste segregation and the nightly deep clean. Undervalued work that keeps a kitchen legal — we train and pay it like it matters.
Hotel breakfast operations from a 06:00 open: buffet setup, hot-holding, egg station to order and a clean handover. Suits people who want their afternoons back.
Event and contract catering at volume — stadium hospitality, conference lunches, wedding service. Big teams, tight timings, clear briefs before the doors open.
Where people go after eighteen months with us. Rota responsibility, deep-clean schedules, chemical stock and audit paperwork. Internal progression, not external hires.
Our pre-placement block is free to candidates and funded by our employer partners. It runs Monday to Thursday at our Smithfield training kitchen in Dublin, with regional blocks in Cork and Galway every month.
Day one · 6 hours
HACCP in plain language: the cook-chill danger zone, hot-holding at 63°C and above, cold storage below 5°C, cross-contamination control and the 14 declarable allergens. You finish able to fill in a temperature log correctly and explain why it matters when an EHO walks in.
Day two · 7 hours
How a brigade actually runs. Reading a prep list, working to par levels, mise en place before the doors open, FIFO stock rotation and labelling. Knife work drilled until the cuts are consistent — a chef judges you on your brunoise long before your CV.
Day three · 7 hours
Combi ovens, gas ranges, deep fryers, pass-through dishwashers, slicers and mixers — safe operation, safe cleaning, safe shutdown. Then a timed service simulation with real dockets and real call-backs, so the first proper rush is not the first rush you have seen.
Day four · half day, then ongoing
PPS number, Revenue registration, contract, right-to-work documents and bank details — completed with a coordinator sitting beside you. Then your placement is matched, you meet the head chef, and we check in after your first week.
Hearth & Hire works both ends of the same problem. Pick your route — each has its own process, its own paperwork and its own dedicated coordinator.
I am looking for workFree four-day training, then a paid placement with an Irish employer who has agreed to support you through your first month. No CV, no catering college, no experience needed.
I need kitchen staffChefs do not have time to train someone from zero mid-service, so we do that part first. Everyone we send has been trained, reference-checked by a person and signed off by a trainer.
Two verbal references, right-to-work documents checked in person, and a trainer sign-off from the placement block.
Every candidate holds current food safety training before their first shift. Certificates are on file and shared with you.
Brief us before noon and you will usually have two or three matched candidates by the end of the third working day.
If a permanent placement does not work out inside fourteen days, we replace them and you do not pay twice.
Each city has its own coordinator who knows the venues personally — which kitchens support new starters properly, and which ones we stopped sending people to.
Our largest desk. Hotel banqueting kitchens, gastropubs across Dublin 1, 2 and 7, contract catering in the docklands and airport hospitality units.
Kitchen assistants · Commis chefs · Catering assistants
City-centre restaurant groups, English Market traders and hotel kitchens along the Lee, plus food production sites needing hygiene-trained hands.
Commis chefs · Pot wash supervisors · Kitchen porters
Seasonal swings around festival weeks and the Salthill trade. We build standby pools in February so summer service never runs a section short.
Kitchen porters · Breakfast chefs · Seasonal cover
Hotel breakfast and conference catering, university-term contract kitchens and a growing independent restaurant scene along Catherine Street.
Breakfast chefs · Kitchen assistants · Banqueting cover
These are live season placements with Irish employers we already work with — summer, festival and Christmas runs — 8 roles and 30 places on the crews. Most are open to non-EU applicants on a sponsored permit, and the earlier you apply, the more of the season you get.
Twenty-one weeks in a seafront hotel kitchen that goes from 60 covers in May to 180 a day through July and August. You arrive off the Hearth & Hire training block with food safety done, so week one is prep, not paperwork.
Kitchen Assistant — Summer SeasonSalthill, Galway
Larder section in a harbour restaurant that trades hard from the June bank holiday to the end of the regatta season. A real brigade, a real section, and a chef de partie who has taken our people before.
Commis Chef — Summer SeasonKinsale, Co. Cork
Evening pot wash and back-of-house support in a coastal seafood room that turns 200 covers on a fine weekend. Twenty-five to thirty-two hours across four or five evenings for the length of the season.
Kitchen Porter — Summer SeasonDún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
Whether you are after your first kitchen job or you are a head chef short two people for the weekend, write to the Dublin desk. A coordinator reads it in working hours and replies — we do not put you through a chatbot.
