Senior Director of Culinary Innovation

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Job Description: POSITION SUMMARY: The Senior Director of Culinary Innovation (Executive Chef) at Portillo's plays a critical role in helping to shape the future menu strategy of our iconic, Chicago-based brand by defining and leading the enterprise-wide culinary strategy. This role balances our strong heritage and craveable food that have made Portillo's iconic with forward-thinking innovation that continues to deliver an unrivaled guest experience across a rapidly growing, multi-state footprint. We're looking for a food- and guest-obsessed culinary leader to thoughtfully and methodically build and lead a multi‑year innovation pipeline rooted in consumer insights, emerging food trends, and operational scalability. This role serves as a strategic thought partner to executive leadership, influencing menu strategy, innovation priorities, and long-term brand positioning through food. This is a hands-on role that owns the culinary strategy and end‑to‑end stage‑gate process, from concept ideation through test, validation, and system‑wide launch, ensuring all new menu items deliver on quality, taste, brand differentiation, speed of service, financial targets, and operational simplicity. Portillo's Executive Chef will also be a champion of culinary excellence, setting and protecting quality standards for all menu items, both current and future. Operating at the intersection of culinary creativity, consumer understanding, and operational discipline, this role partners closely with Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, and Finance to bring winning ideas to market at scale. This leader will help define what Portillo's culinary innovation looks like today and in the future, ensuring it remains distinctive, relevant, and executable across the system. This is a hybrid position requiring four days per week on-site, primarily at the test kitchen in Aurora, Illinois (3-4 days), with occasional on-site presence at the Portillo's Restaurant Support Center in Oakbrook, Illinois (approximately 1 day). One day per week may be remote. CORE RESPONSIBILITIES: Enable our Purpose to create lifelong memories by igniting the senses with unrivaled food and experiences: Family: Work together to make everyone feel at home, and we step up when someone needs help Greatness: We're obsessed with being the best and work hard to continuously improve. Our greatness is rooted in Quality, Service, Attitude and Cleanliness Energy: We move with urgency and passion, while maintaining attention to detail Fun: We entertain our guests, we connect authentically, and we make each other smile Multi‑Year Innovation Strategy & Pipeline Ownership Lead the development and stewardship of a rolling 3-year culinary innovation roadmap, aligned to brand strategy, growth objectives, and consumer demand Translate consumer insights, menu performance data, and macro food trends into actionable innovation platforms (e.g., flavors, formats, proteins, dayparts, functional benefits) Balance breakthrough innovation, line extensions, and core menu optimization to ensure a healthy and sustainable pipeline Establish clear innovation priorities across: Core menu evolution Limited time offers (LTOs) Seasonal promotions Platform innovation and future concepts Consumer‑Led & Trend‑Informed Product Development Drive focus and rigor on menu innovation as a platform for business growth, exploring new menu innovation and renovation ideas in Portillo's test kitchen daily Leverage multiple inputs including guest feedback, customer segments, sales data, trend research, competitive benchmarking, and cultural insights to inform product ideation Identify and interpret emerging culinary, ingredient, and dietary trends and translate them into scalable, on‑brand menu concepts grounded in consumer relevance, while building on the menu items and flavors that have made Portillo's iconic Partner with Marketing and Insights teams to validate concepts through qualitative and quantitative research where appropriate Collaborate with leadership on menu rollouts, seasonal LTOs, recipe updates, and new equipment/process implementation Co-create with supplier partners across food and beverage to identify and develop ownable innovation and platforms unique to the brand Serve as a champion of quality for all menu items offered today and in the future pipeline Stage‑Gate Process Leadership & Governance Own and continuously improve the stage‑gate process for culinary innovation, ensuring rigor, clarity, and cross‑functional alignment Define success criteria, deliverables, and decision points for each stage, including: Concept & business case Culinary feasibility Operational readiness Costing and margin modeling Supply chain viability Test & learn execution Launch readiness Lead gate review meetings; present recommendations and clear go/no‑go decisions to executive and cross‑functional stakeholders Ensure risks are identified early and mitigated before scale Test, Learn & Commercialization Excellence