Cook Interview Questions: Free Kit & Scorecard
Free cook interview questions for small restaurants without HR. Sets for line, prep, head cook, and sous chef, plus a 1-to-5 scorecard. DOCX download.
Cook Interview Questions: Free Kit & Scorecard
Interview questions by role for general cooks, line cooks, prep cooks, head cooks, and sous chefs, with what to listen for and a 1-to-5 scorecard, built for small restaurants without HR. Download the kit as DOCX.
Hiring a good cook is one of the hardest, most frequent jobs a small restaurant faces, and it usually happens fast, between services, with no HR team to help. The questions that actually predict a strong cook are specific: stations and technique, food safety, composure when tickets pile up, and above all availability, since a schedule mismatch is one of the top reasons kitchen hires do not work out. The right kit gives you role-by-role questions and a way to score candidates fairly without slowing down service.
At FirstHR, we build for small restaurants and cafes that hire without an HR department, where the owner or chef is also the recruiter. This kit gives you question sets for general cooks, line cooks, prep cooks, head cooks, and sous chefs, with what to listen for and a 1-to-5 scorecard. For the roles themselves, pair this with the line cook and prep cook job descriptions, or the broader restaurant interview kit for front-of-house roles.
How to Use This Cook Interview Kit
This kit is built to run a fair, fast kitchen interview without an HR team. Pick the question set for the role you are hiring, ask the same core questions of every candidate, and score each one on the rubric so a quick conversation still produces a sound decision. The whole structured interview takes about fifteen minutes.
Two things matter most in a cook interview and are easy to skip when you are rushed: confirm availability specifically, and probe food safety with real questions. A structured approach, where every candidate is asked and scored the same way, is fairer and predicts performance better than a loose chat. For the fundamentals, the structured interview guide and how to conduct an interview go deeper.
Which Question Set Do You Need?
Pick the set by the kitchen role you are filling. Start every interview with the core questions, then add the role-specific set. Each set comes with what to listen for, and the kit includes a scorecard to rate candidates consistently.
Question Sets and a Scorecard to Download
Download all six as a single Word document or copy individual sets. Each set lists the questions to ask, what to listen for, and space for notes. The final file is the scorecard. Use the same core questions for every candidate, then add the role-specific set.
Set 1: General Cook / Kitchen Staff Interview Questions
The universal set for any cook or kitchen candidate, grouped into experience, technique, food safety, and situational and culture fit. Start with these for everyone.
Set 2: Line Cook Interview Questions
For line cooks: stations, ticket timing, speed with accuracy, station upkeep, and the teamwork that keeps a line moving together.
Set 3: Prep Cook Interview Questions (Entry-Level)
For prep cooks: knife work, following a prep list, cleanliness, and reliability. Weigh attitude over experience for a first kitchen job.
Set 4: Head Cook / Kitchen Manager Interview Questions
For a kitchen leader: food cost, inventory, training, conflict, and health-inspection readiness, alongside running the line through service.
Set 5: Sous Chef Interview Questions
For a sous chef: running service for the head chef, developing cooks, menu execution, cost control, and holding the line to standards.
Set 6: Cook Interview Scorecard (1 to 5 Rubric)
A cook-specific rubric to score each candidate on technique, food safety, pressure, teamwork, and reliability, so the decision rests on evidence. The asset competitors skip.
What Good Answers Sound Like
The value is not just the questions but knowing what a strong answer sounds like. Across cook roles, the best answers share a few traits: they are specific, they show food-safety habits without being prompted, and they talk about the team, not just the individual.
| Question area | What a strong answer sounds like |
|---|---|
| Experience | Names specific stations, kitchens, and the volume they handled, not just years |
| Technique | Describes a real method for consistency and prepping ahead of a rush |
| Food safety | Mentions temperatures, separation, and labeling as daily habits, unprompted |
| Under pressure | Tells a concrete story of a slammed line and what they actually did |
| Teamwork | Talks about communication with the line and expo, not just personal speed |
| Availability | Gives specific days and shifts, and it matches what you need |
The clearest green flag is a cook who brings up food safety and teamwork on their own, without being asked. The clearest red flag is vague answers and a casual attitude toward safe handling.
What to Listen For (and Red Flags)
The questions get the cook talking; what you listen for decides the hire. In a kitchen, a few things matter most, and a few answers are clear warning signs worth catching before you make an offer.
The single most useful follow-up is to press gently on availability and get specifics, since a vague answer that shifts when you ask again often means a schedule problem later. For reading candidates more broadly, the guide to interview questions to ask candidates helps.
Questions You Cannot Ask (EEOC)
This is the part that protects a kitchen, and it is easy to slip on during friendly talk. Keep every question tied to the job, ask about availability directly rather than through personal questions, and treat food safety certification as the job requirement it is.
Keeping questions job-related is also just good interviewing: it keeps the focus on whether someone can cook the food and run the station. For the full list of what to avoid, the illegal interview questions guide goes deeper. This is general information, not legal advice.
How to Run the Interview
Running a cook interview well is about structure and speed. Pick the questions, confirm availability, probe technique and food safety, score, and decide fast. The steps below fit a between-services interview.
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1. Pick the set | Choose the role's question set and start with the core questions |
| 2. Confirm availability | Ask specifically about nights, weekends, and holidays |
| 3. Probe technique | Get real examples of stations, consistency, and handling a rush |
| 4. Check food safety | Safe handling, storage, and any required certifications |
| 5. Score | Rate each candidate 1 to 5 with evidence, the same for everyone |
| 6. Decide fast | Compare scores, choose, and send the offer quickly |
Move quickly once you decide, because good cooks are often interviewing in several places at once and the fastest clear offer tends to win. Score right after each interview while it is fresh.
Cook Pay to Benchmark Your Offer
Knowing the going rate helps you make an offer that lands. Cooks are paid hourly, with pay varying by setting, region, and experience. Use government data as a baseline, then adjust for your local market and the specific role.
Pay runs higher in upscale restaurants and hotels and in major metro and resort areas, and it climbs with each step up the kitchen, from prep cook to line cook to head cook. Cook employment is projected to grow about 5 percent from 2024 to 2034, with roughly 432,200 openings a year, so a competitive, transparent pay range helps a small restaurant attract reliable kitchen staff.
Hiring Cooks Without HR
A large chain hires cooks through an HR team with a structured process and software. A small restaurant hires between services, by the owner or chef, far more often because kitchen turnover runs high. Here is how to make those quick interviews fair and effective without any of the overhead.
From Interview to Onboarding
The interview is step one of a kitchen hire you repeat all year. Once you choose a cook, the process moves fast into the offer, the paperwork, the food handler card, and training before the first shift, the part a busy kitchen most needs to make repeatable.
Once an interview leads to a hire, the offer letter template handles the next step, the restaurant onboarding checklist structures the first week, and an onboarding template gives the new cook a clear start. FirstHR connects the offer, paperwork, e-signatures, certifications, and onboarding workflow in one place, so a small restaurant can run the full hiring-to-onboarding process from one system. FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a scheduling tool, a POS, or an applicant tracking system, so the interview kit lives here and the hire flows into onboarding. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What questions should I ask a cook in an interview?
Group your questions into four areas. Experience: the kitchens they have worked, the stations they are strongest on, and the volume they are used to. Technique: how they prep for service, keep portions and quality consistent, and handle running out of an ingredient. Food safety: their approach to safe handling, whether they hold a food handler card or ServSafe certification, and how they prevent cross-contamination. Situational and culture fit: how they handle a rush, take direction, and their availability for nights, weekends, and holidays. Availability is the most important practical answer, because a schedule mismatch is a top reason kitchen hires fail. Ask the same core questions of every candidate so you can compare fairly. The downloadable kit on this page groups questions by role.
What are good line cook interview questions?
Good line cook questions test speed, station knowledge, and teamwork. Ask which stations they have run, such as grill, saute, fry, or pantry, how they keep up speed and accuracy during a rush, how they read and fire tickets to time a table together, and how they keep their station clean and stocked through a shift. Ask for a story about a time the line got slammed and what they did. The best answers focus on timing and communication, not just raw speed, because a line only works when it moves together. Listen for someone who talks about the team and the expo, keeps quality consistent plate after plate, and stays calm under pressure. The line cook question set on this page covers all of these.
What interview questions should I ask a prep cook?
For a prep cook, attitude and reliability matter more than experience, since many prep cooks are hired with little background and trained up. Ask whether they have kitchen experience or this is their first cooking job, whether they are comfortable with knife work and basic cuts, how they follow a recipe or prep list to get quantities right, and how they keep their work area clean. Ask how they handle repetitive prep over a long shift and their availability for early mornings and weekends. Listen for willingness to learn, basic knife comfort or eagerness to build it, and care about cleanliness and following directions. Coachability and dependability are the real signals. A food handler card can often be earned shortly after hire where your local health code allows.
How do you assess food safety knowledge in a cook interview?
Ask direct, practical questions and listen for specifics rather than buzzwords. Ask the candidate to walk you through their approach to food safety and cleanliness, how they store and label food to prevent cross-contamination, and whether they hold a food handler card or a ServSafe certification. Strong cooks talk naturally about safe temperatures, separating raw and cooked foods, labeling and dating, and keeping a clean station, because these are daily habits for them. A casual or vague answer on food safety is a red flag worth taking seriously, since it directly affects guest safety and your health-inspection results. Confirm what your local health department requires, and note that some certifications can be earned shortly after hire. This is general information, not legal advice.
What questions can you not legally ask a cook in an interview?
Do not ask questions that probe characteristics protected under federal law, which the EEOC enforces: age, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy or family plans, disability, or genetic information. In a kitchen interview, common traps include asking how old someone is beyond confirming they are old enough for the role, whether childcare affects their schedule, where their accent is from, or whether they need particular days off for religious reasons. Ask instead about availability, the ability to perform the physical work of the job, and whether they are legally authorized to work. Confirm availability directly rather than through personal questions. Asking the same job-related questions of every candidate is the simplest way to stay both fair and compliant. This is general information, not legal advice.
How do I interview a cook without an HR department?
Use a structured interview kit. Pick the question set for the role, general, line, prep, head cook, or sous chef, ask the same core questions of every candidate, and score each one on a simple rubric so the decision rests on evidence rather than a gut feeling made under time pressure. Confirm availability specifically, since a schedule mismatch is a top reason kitchen hires fail, and ask about food safety certification. Keep questions job-related to stay fair and compliant. This gives a small restaurant the structure a large operation gets from its HR team, without any software, and it fits the reality of interviewing between services. The downloadable kit and scorecard on this page are built for exactly this. This is general information, not legal advice.
How much do cooks make per hour?
Cooks are paid hourly, with pay varying by region, setting, and experience. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median hourly wage of $17.19 for cooks as of May 2024, with the lowest 10 percent earning under $12.00 and the highest 10 percent earning over $22.45. Pay differs by type of cook: restaurant cooks and institution or cafeteria cooks tend to sit near or above the overall cook median, while fast food cooks tend to earn less. Chefs and head cooks, who are paid as salaried kitchen leaders, had a much higher median annual wage of $60,990 in May 2024. Pay runs highest in upscale restaurants and hotels and in major metro and resort areas. Benchmark to your specific role and local market, and post a pay range where required. This is general information, not legal advice.
What is a cook interview scorecard?
A cook interview scorecard is a simple rubric that rates a candidate on what matters for kitchen work, usually from 1 to 5, with space for notes. Typical scoring areas include relevant cooking experience, technique and consistency, food safety knowledge, working under pressure and speed, teamwork and communication, and reliability and availability. The scorecard turns a quick, between-services interview into a structured decision: each cook is scored the same way, and if more than one person interviews, they score independently before discussing. This keeps the most likeable candidate from automatically beating the most capable one, and it gives an owner or chef a record of why each person was hired or passed. A cook-specific scorecard is included with the kit on this page.