9 November 2026 · Head Chef
An Indian chef cooks Indian cuisine, usually on one section of a restaurant kitchen. Here is how tandoor, curry and sweet sections work, and where the career goes.
An Indian chef is a chef who cooks Indian cuisine professionally, most often in an Indian restaurant or takeaway, and usually on one named section of the kitchen: tandoor, curry, tawa or starters, rice, or sweets. The work is closer to a classic brigade than people expect, but the sections are built around the equipment and the cooking method rather than French station names. This guide explains what each section does, what employers want, and how pay and progression compare with other UK kitchens.
Most UK Indian kitchens are smaller than a hotel brigade, so one cook often covers two sections. Larger restaurants split them out. In job adverts you are more likely to see titles like tandoor chef or curry chef than commis or chef de partie, though the ranks underneath are the same: a junior who preps and assists, a cook who owns a section, a sous chef who runs the pass or the shift, and a head chef who owns the menu and the costs.
Prep is a section in its own right. Ginger-garlic paste, ground and toasted spice blends, marinades, onion bases, doughs and chutneys all get made before service, and a kitchen that does this badly shows it by Friday night.
The tandoor is a clay oven, fired with charcoal or gas, that runs far hotter than any standard oven. The tandoor chef cooks breads (naan, roti, kulcha) slapped against the walls of the oven, and skewered items such as chicken tikka, lamb seekh and paneer. The skill is heat judgement and timing: a few seconds decides whether a tikka is juicy or dry.
Marinades are part of the job. Yoghurt-based marinades are typically applied well ahead of service, so the tandoor chef plans a day in advance as well as cooking in the moment. Expect forearm burns early on. It is hot, physical work, and in many kitchens it is a specialist role that people stay in for years.
This is the busiest section in most restaurants. The curry chef makes the sauces, finishes dishes to order and keeps the portions and flavour the same from one night to the next. Many kitchens work from a base gravy, usually onion and tomato, then build individual dishes on top with whole and ground spices, tempering (the tadka, where spices are bloomed in hot fat) and a final adjustment for salt, acid and heat.
The range across the country is wide. A Punjabi-leaning menu, a Keralan one, a Bengali one and a standard curry-house list all ask for different skills. If you have cooked regional food, say which region on your CV, because employers hire for that.
Biryani done properly is dum cooking: partly cooked rice and marinated meat or vegetables layered in a pot, sealed and finished slowly in their own steam. It takes patience and a feel for timing, and in some kitchens it sits with the curry chef, in others with its own cook.
The tawa is a flat griddle used for dishes like kebabs, dosa and pan-fried fish or paneer. Alongside it sit the fryer and cold starters: samosas, bhajis, pakoras and chaat assembly. This is fast, high-volume work and a common first section for someone moving up from prep.
Traditional Indian sweets include gulab jamun, jalebi, kheer, halwa and kulfi. Plenty of restaurants buy some of these in, but kitchens that make them have a cook, sometimes a dedicated one, who handles sugar syrups, milk reductions and frying. It overlaps with pastry skills such as sugar temperature and setting, which is useful if you later look at pastry chef jobs.
Formal qualifications matter less than a trial shift. Many kitchens will put you on a section for a few hours and judge you on that.
The Only Chefs salary guide does not break pay down by cuisine, so the figures below are for the role level across all UK kitchens, built from job adverts. Treat them as a guide to the market, not a promise from any one Indian restaurant.
Entry roles such as kitchen porter, kitchen assistant and prep are tied closely to the National Living Wage, which is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over from April 2026. Many Indian chefs start there, in a kitchen porter or commis chef role, and learn a section by working beside the person who owns it.
The usual route is prep, then a junior position on tawa or starters, then curry or tandoor as the owner of the section, then sous chef. Because brigades are smaller, a capable section chef can reach sous or head chef level sooner than in a large hotel, but you need to show you can handle ordering, wastage and a rota as well as cooking.
Some UK kitchens recruit chefs from India and other countries, and sponsorship depends on the employer holding the right licence and the role meeting the visa rules. Check both before you accept an offer. Our guide on moving to the UK to work as a chef covers the questions to ask first.
They prepare and cook Indian dishes on a specific kitchen section, such as tandoor, curry or sweets, and often make their own spice blends, marinades and bases before service.
Prep or starters is the usual way in, because you learn the menu and the spice base while the pressure is lower. Tandoor and curry come after that.
Not usually. Employers tend to rely on a trial shift and references, though a food hygiene certificate is expected.
There is no section-level pay data in the salary guide. Pay depends on the employer, the location and how specialist the role is.
Search current vacancies on our Chef de Partie jobs page for section roles, or Head Chef jobs if you are ready to run a kitchen. Filter by location and read the advert for the cuisine and section before you apply.