CAREERS
We’re a growing food business in the heart of the community we serve, and we are looking to grow our team. Come and join us in sharing our love of all things food, drink and conviviality.
Blake’s Kitchen is a bakery, café & food store in the small Cotswold village of Clanfield. We are passionate about serving great quality food and drink to our customers. We focus on exceptional coffee, fresh in-house made bread & cakes, interesting salads and tasty sandwiches and snacks. We embrace freshness of ingredients, and love to use local artisan suppliers.
In 2020 we opened a second Blake’s Kitchen at Soho Farmhouse in Great Tew. In November 2023 we opened Blake’s Kitchen at The Buscot & Coleshill Estate.
If you are passionate about food & drink, and enjoying it with people, we would love to hear from you.
Let us know if you have experience; but attitude and mindset are more important to us. Positive, friendly, genuine, attention to detail and team & customer focus are characteristics that will definitely impress us.
CURRENT
VACANCIES
Baker - Clanfield
Due to growth, we are looking for full or part-time experienced artisan bakers at our small but busy bakery-café baking real bread, including award-winning sourdough and pastries.
You will be baking, mixing and shaping consistently excellent products to sell in our café shops, to supply our wholesale customers, and for our chefs to produce outstanding sandwiches and breakfasts with. We have some exciting plans for growth in the coming months, which will provide great opportunities for development for the successful candidate.
We would also welcome applications from enthusiastic home-bakers looking to change career. Experience is helpful, but more important to us is a willingness to learn, passion for all things bread and cake and a keen eye for detail. This role is physically demanding, but incredibly rewarding.
Absolutely everything in our kitchen and bakery is made by us, by hand, freshly every day, on site. We are obsessive about quality.
You will be happy with very early starts; as at the moment we do not work night shifts. A typical shift time may be 4am until 1pm and will include most weekends.
In return we can offer competitive pay and support with ongoing professional development, access to an external Employee Advice Programme, free lunch on shift, staff discount scheme, and the possibilities of progression within a growing business.
Chef, All Levels, PART TIME & Full Time Opportunities
Clanfield & Coleshill
Daytime Hours with Flexibility on Start/ Finish Times. Full or Part Time Hours Considered.
We have a great opportunity for a Chef to continue on their career with us working in our award winning bakery & café. Working with our enthusiastic team striving to make everything we do the absolute best it can be. Everything in our kitchen is made by us from scratch. You will be working with products from our in- house sourdough bakery to make outstanding breakfast and lunch dishes. You will also help keep our fresh salad bar stocked with interesting tasty salads and our counter stocked with savoury items such as sausage rolls made using our own puff pastry. The role offers a positive work environment, a great work/life balance with daytime shifts and opportunities to progress through the company and guide you through your career.
You will have worked in a similar role for at least one year. You will have experience of working as part of a team in a busy, high turnover kitchen. You have excellent knowledge of kitchen operations including health and safety regulations.
In return we can offer competitive pay and support with ongoing professional development, access to an external Employee Advice Programme, free lunch on shift, staff discount scheme, and the possibilities of progression within a growing business.
Our Values
Obsessive about quality
Passionate about what we do
Respect each other, customers and the products we work with
Striving to be experts in our craft
BENEFITS
Competitive salary
Access for you and your immediate family to an externally provided Employee Advice Programme. The service helps employees deal with personal problems that might adversely impact their work performance, health and wellbeing. This would include assessment, short-term counselling and referral services for employees and their immediate family
Staff uniforms provided
Free staff lunches when working a shift that would generate a break entitlement
Employee discount scheme
Working with great quality ingredients and products
Support with professional development, examples include; basic & advanced food hygiene qualifications, first aid, SCA barista training, line management training
Access to an industry leading online learning platform
Career progression opportunities in a growing business
We don’t open for customers on Christmas Day or Boxing Day
Bespoke 12 month management & leadership development programme
Natasha
Started as Customer Service Advisor
Progressed to Front of House Manager
Now Head Baker
TEAM SPOTLIGHT:
FRANKIE
HEAD CHEF, CLANFIELD
What did you want to do when you were little?
To draw cartoons and become an illustrator / animator
Why did you gravitate to the kitchen?
It was a time in Italy there was a massive economic crisis, and I needed to help my family to contribute to the high cost living, so I have started as a waitress during summer season and then I found a job as a cook in a pub in Italy.
Passion for the culinary art has been part of my childhood (cooking with my Nonna every day) , so I decided to continue my career in the hospitality.
Who is your cooking inspiration?
Cooking with my grandma it’s the best inspiration that I bring with me and I try to keep that tradition in all my home and work life.
What’s your favourite thing about Blake’s?
That it is a family business and started from scratch makes me very proud to be a part of (not counting the Italian family origin of the business).
Also the amazing things that we are making (or try to!) Everything homemade like it used to be way back when, before all the globalisation started (like Nonna would do!) working with good products and quality is the key.