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EXECUTIVE CHEF

Cibolo Creek Ranch — Big Bend Region, West Texas

ABOUT THE PROPERTY

Cibolo Creek Ranch is a 30,000-acre luxury ranch resort in Presidio County, Texas, thirty-three miles south of Marfa in the Big Bend region. The property is built around three historic adobe forts dating to 1857, restored and operated as a destination resort with twenty-one guest keys, a private airstrip, an active hunting program across native and exotic species, and a guest profile that includes families, principals, and members of the property's private hunting club. The ranch sits at four thousand feet of elevation in the foothills of the Chinati Mountains, fifteen miles from the U.S.–Mexico border, and three hours by car from El Paso. We are pursuing Forbes Five-Star certification within three years. The kitchen is the single largest gap between the property we are and the property we represent ourselves as.

THE ROLE

This is a working Executive Chef seat. The person in this seat is the most skilled and most present cook in the kitchen every service, every day. This is not an administrative role; it is not a kitchen-manager role; it is not a role for a chef whose primary contribution is supervisory. Menu architecture, hands-on cooking, training, sourcing, cost discipline, and the moment-to-moment quality of every plate that leaves the kitchen are owned by this position.

The Executive Chef reports directly to the General Manager and serves as one of four senior operational leaders on the property. The role owns the full F&B P&L — back of house and front of house — with menu, prep, plating, service, sourcing, labor model, and guest experience all under one roof of accountability.

CULINARY DIRECTION

The cuisine is upscale American and regional Mexican. Specifically: Oaxacan, Norteño, Yucatecan, Baja, and the cooking of the Chihuahuan Desert. The property sits inside one of the most distinctive culinary regions on the North American continent, and the kitchen should reflect that. This is not Tex-Mex. This is not American-Mexican fusion. This is regional Mexican cooking executed with the technical refinement of a luxury kitchen, paired with American cooking that respects the land — wood-fire, game, heritage grains, and produce sourced as locally as the Trans-Pecos allows.

The hunting program brings the kitchen game year-round: native Carmen Mountain whitetail, axis deer, aoudad, blackbuck, nilgai, wild blue quail, Rio Grande turkey. The Executive Chef will be expected to break down whole animals, run a hearth and wood-fire program, and build the kind of game-forward dinners that guests of this property travel to experience. Catch-and-release fishing rounds out the local sourcing picture; the rest comes through Marfa, Alpine, and ranch-direct purveyors in Presidio and Chihuahua.

The standing meal program is approximately three seatings of family-style dining per day on an all-inclusive plan, plus à la carte service for the hunting club and private buyouts of the historic forts. Hunting parties may request custom multi-course tasting menus on short notice; standing service may be paused for a private chef's table when the property buys out for a single principal. The chef should be able to move from family-style scale to seven-course tasting to a wood-fire ranch breakfast with the same brigade and within the same week.

THE BRIGADE

The kitchen team is approximately ten to fourteen cooks. Approximately eighty percent of the brigade commutes daily from Ojinaga, Chihuahua, across the border, and most speak Spanish as their primary language. Several have been on the property for years. None have had structured culinary training. All of them want a leader, and several have the talent to grow significantly under one. The Executive Chef is expected to be fluent in Spanish — written and verbal — at a level that allows for direct technical instruction, real feedback, and the building of trust that survives the high-pressure moments service produces.

Training and elevating this brigade is one of the central responsibilities of the seat, not an adjacent one. The chef who succeeds here will, within twenty-four months, have promoted at least one or two cooks into roles they could not have imagined holding a year earlier. That is the standard. That is what excellence looks like in this kitchen.

WHAT THE PROPERTY IS LOOKING FOR

The right candidate is a chef-operator. Specifically:

• Five to fifteen years of progressive culinary leadership in high-expectation kitchens, including at least one Executive Chef or Chef de Cuisine seat.

• Demonstrable regional Mexican fluency — not menu vocabulary, but technical depth in at least one major regional tradition (Oaxacan, Norteño, Yucatecan, Baja, or comparable).

• American refined technique alongside the Mexican fluency. Both traditions, not one.

• Bilingual English and Spanish, at a level fluent enough to teach in.

• A track record of training cooks who did not previously know how to cook. Recommendations from former direct reports — not from peers or managers — are the most credible evidence of this.

• The capacity to live and work in a remote setting. Presidio County has fewer than seven thousand residents. The nearest large city is three hours away. Marfa has approximately two thousand people, a cultural scene, and a small but real social fabric. Candidates should think carefully about whether this is a life they and their family can build.

• Comfort with food cost discipline, FIFO, ordering, and waste control. The kitchen's current food cost is approximately sixty percent; the target is at or below thirty-five percent within twelve months. This is a structural improvement, not a quality cut.

The role rewards: wood-fire and hearth experience, whole-animal butchery, prior destination-property experience (Relais & Châteaux, Auberge, Aman, Bunkhouse-adjacent properties), pre-opening or relaunch experience, and a personal cooking voice that complements the regional cuisine direction rather than imposing on it.

COMPENSATION AND LOGISTICS

Total all-in compensation is generous and commensurate with experience, structured as a base salary, a service share, and a performance bonus tied to food cost breakpoints. Housing is provided on the property — not bunk housing, but a residence appropriate to the seat. Top-tier health benefits are included for the chef and family. The role qualifies for the property's senior leadership benefits structure.

The role is full-time and on-property. Weekend and holiday work are required; the property has a defined summer closure for staff reset. Lifting thirty-five to fifty pounds regularly and extended standing are part of the work. The chef will spend Christmas, New Year's, and most major holidays at the property; this is the rhythm of a destination resort and should be entered into with eyes open.

Visa sponsorship is not available at this time. Candidates must have independent U.S. work authorization.

THE HORIZON

We are looking for a four-to-six year commitment, minimum. This is not a stepping-stone seat. The property is in a structural rebuild — new leadership, new standards, a path to Forbes Five-Star, and a generational chapter of growth in the property's reach and reputation — and the Executive Chef is one of three or four people in a position to define what this kitchen becomes. The chef who takes this seat will, in 2030, be able to point to a kitchen they built, a brigade they trained, a regional cuisine program they shaped, and a property they helped move from underperforming to extraordinary. That is the offer. That is the work.

HOW TO APPLY

Send a resume and a one-paragraph note explaining what drew you to this specific property — not to "an executive chef role" generally, but to this role at this property. We read every note. Generic applications will not advance.

Direct applications to:

Michael Boire, General Manager

MBoire@cibolocreekranch.com

Cibolo Creek Ranch is an equal opportunity employer.