When your artform is chocolate, butter, flour, and sugar, writing your pastry chef cover letter can seem like a daunting task. However, this essential application component is important to sweeten the deal and show a hiring manager or restaurant manager why you’re the right for their establishment.
You’ve only got a few words to whet the employer’s appetite for your skills and experience. With 350+ resume examples and writing guides, Resume.io is here to show you how to whip up a cover letter that highlights all the right qualities.
Here’s what we’ll get a taste of in this pastry chef cover letter example and writing guide:
- How to choose the best cover letter format and what paragraphs the cover letter should include
- How to maximize the effect of each cover letter paragraph (header, greeting, intro, body and conclusion)
- What approach to take when writing your cover letter
- What mistakes to avoid when writing your librarian cover letter.
Best format for a pastry chef cover letter
Formatting your pastry chef cover letter correctly helps you make the most of limited space and convey all the necessary details of your skills and experience in just one page. Here are the essential ingredients:
- The cover letter header
- The greeting / salutation
- The cover letter intro
- The middle paragraphs (body of the letter)
- The ending paragraph of your cover letter (conclusion and call-to-action)
A great pastry chef cover letter should not only convey your hard skills, but also the personality traits and work style that make you the right fit for the particular environment where you plan to work.
Whether it’s a bakery, hotel, resort, high-end restaurant, food production facility or otherwise, make sure to research the employer, their products, clientele and brand. This information will help you create a customized cover letter that explains why you believe you’re right for this particular opening – sending the same exact cover letter to many positions is not advised!
Our comprehensive cover letter guide offers more detail into the best formatting practices including font styles, sizes and length. You can also find inspiration in our pastry chef cover letter example below.
Dear Chef Parton,
Having specialized in the pastry arts after my culinary management degree, the past four years have been a blur of innovation, culinary exploration, and happy customers. Exceeding guest expectations at two leading hotels has been a constant challenge.
I have prepared a wide variety of baked goods over my career, from breads to pastries, pies and cakes. The dessert selection at my previous employer was mentioned in 55 percent of guest testimonials and the hotel enjoyed an average 15 percent uplift in bookings after every inclusion of my pastries in the industry press (on 17 occasions over three years).
In terms of my operational understanding, sourcing the best ingredients with the most efficient supply chain is vital when you are serving over 1,000 guests a day. As a trend-setter in the market, we were constantly raising the bar in terms of culinary innovation, and this entailed a significant degree of logistical risk. We cultivated relationships with top-tier suppliers, enjoying 99.5 percent availability rates due to our source local strategies.
Alongside my resume, I enclose a selection of customer comments that I have accumulated over the years. They are what keeps me pushing the innovation envelope every time I put on my apron. When people eat pastry, they want to be serenaded by its sweet delights.
I look forward to a potential meeting and would be happy to bring along some of my favorite creations for you to sample. I am certain that your guests will love them.
Sincerely,
Landon Willinger
Looking for more inspiration? Dig into these related hospitality cover letter examples:
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Cover letter header
The cover letter header is the attractive presentation that lures the manager into sampling your application. Located at the very top of the page, the header should include your name and contact information and any social media or portfolio pages that demonstrate your work.
Your header also plays an important role in creating a personal brand or image that sticks out in the hiring manager’s mind. Before choosing a color scheme or font, make sure to take into account the company’s brand image – you may even want to use different header looks for different openings.
To get a head start designing your header, check out our adaptable pastry chef cover letter sample.
Cover letter greeting
The cover letter greeting is the way you address the person who will be reading your cover letter. It’s best to use the hiring manager or restaurant manager’s name whenever possible. In a restaurant or bakery setting, you may even be able to call and ask who to address your cover letter to.
If it’s not possible to find someone’s name, a general greeting like “Dear (Company Name) Pastry Team” can also work well. See the greeting from our cover letter sample below.
Dear Chef Parton,
Cover letter introduction
The cover letter introduction serves as a quick presentation of yourself and your top selling points as a pastry chef. Make sure to draw the reader in with energetic and job-specific language so that they are more likely to read the rest of your cover letter. An anecdote about a formative experience, a challenge you overcame, or a relevant skill can all make for great openings, as can a connection to the prospective employer.
See the introduction from our adaptable pastry chef cover letter sample below.
Having specialized in the pastry arts after my culinary management degree, the past four years have been a blur of innovation, culinary exploration, and happy customers. Exceeding guest expectations at two leading hotels has been a constant challenge.
Cover letter middle part (body)
The middle part, or body, of your cover letter allows you to express all the skills and experiences that make you the right fit for the pastry chef job. Even though this is the longest part of your cover letter, you’ll only have a paragraph or two to speak to the hiring manager, so make sure to choose experiences that are most relevant to the opening. The job description can help you decide what the employer cares about most.
What do hiring managers care about most in hospitality positions?
Demonstrate that you can put yourself in the position of the customer or the guest, without assumptions or bias. Only then will you be able to understand their needs. Such soft skills should dominate a hospitality cover letter.
While hard skills (technical skills) will understandably be the focus of your pastry chef cover letter, don’t forget to mention a few personality traits or softer characteristics that show what sort of employee and coworker you are.
I have prepared a wide variety of baked goods over my career, from breads to pastries, pies and cakes. The dessert selection at my previous employer was mentioned in 55 percent of guest testimonials and the hotel enjoyed an average 15 percent uplift in bookings after every inclusion of my pastries in the industry press (on 17 occasions over three years).
In terms of my operational understanding, sourcing the best ingredients with the most efficient supply chain is vital when you are serving over 1,000 guests a day. As a trend-setter in the market, we were constantly raising the bar in terms of culinary innovation, and this entailed a significant degree of logistical risk. We cultivated relationships with top-tier suppliers, enjoying 99.5 percent availability rates due to our source local strategies.
Alongside my resume, I enclose a selection of customer comments that I have accumulated over the years. They are what keeps me pushing the innovation envelope every time I put on my apron. When people eat pastry, they want to be serenaded by its sweet delights.
The STAR method can help you better organize the anecdotes in your cover letter. First, describe a Situation and the Task required of you. Then explain your Action and the positive Result that followed. Try to keep each of these anecdotes to a maximum of three sentences.
How to close a pastry chef cover letter (conclusion and sign-off)
The conclusion of your pastry chef cover letter should end on a sweet note and leave the employer wanting to get in touch to learn more. Make sure to include a call to action – a final sentence that expresses your enthusiasm for the role and invites the hiring manager to get in touch. Your tone should be earnest and professional – there’s no need to demand. See how the perfect balance is achieved in our pastry chef cover letter example below.
I look forward to a potential meeting and would be happy to bring along some of my favorite creations for you to sample. I am certain that your guests will love them.
Sincerely,
Landon Willinger
Basic mistakes in a pastry chef cover letter (and how to avoid them)
By avoiding simple errors in your pastry chef cover letter, you can place yourself ahead of less-attentive candidates and increase your chances of landing the interview. Here’s what to watch out for:
- Spelling and grammar mistakes: These small errors call your professionalism into question and make an employer wonder how attentive you are as a pastry chef. Use spell check and ask a friend to proofread before you submit.
- Formatting errors: A poorly formatted cover letter is like a delicious, yet ugly dessert. The content is still good, but no one will be interested in giving it a try. Luckily, an expertly-designed cover letter template can make this problem easy to fix.
- Too wordy: It’s only natural that you want to explain to a hiring manager what you’re capable of, however, it’s important to keep your cover letter to a maximum of one page and to stick with skills and experiences that are most relevant to the position you’re applying for.
Key takeaways
- Research the employer and make sure your cover letter tone and format matches their style and brand.
- Focus on your strengths as a pastry chef by including a mix of technical skills and personality traits.
- Don’t forget to include a call to action which invites the hiring manager to get in touch.
- Check out our pastry chef cover letter sample for more ideas on creating a great page design.
