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🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates · MNL → DXB

Hire Filipino chefs and cooks in the UAE

Commis, demi chefs, chefs de partie, pastry and cold kitchen for UAE hotels, restaurants and catering companies — cook-tested live in Manila, from a workforce that already staffs Gulf hotel kitchens and cruise lines.

Direct employer · you sponsorDMW-licensed agency in Manila · HR consultancy in DubaiReviewed 11.09.2026

The kitchen shortage

Kitchens are where UAE operators feel the shortage first: every new hotel and restaurant needs a brigade, and brigades are built from commis and chefs de partie. The Philippines supplies both in volume — hotel-school graduates with Cookery NC II, cooks with five years in Gulf hotels, cruise-line cooks used to volume and standards.

How we test cooks

A live cook at Prime Search's kitchen facilities in Makati to your brief — a mise en place task, a hot dish from a recipe, a plating; pastry candidates bake; cold-kitchen candidates prepare and present. Hygiene and knife skills are scored. Your executive chef watches live or from the recording and interviews the same day.

Sponsorship

On the UAE side, your company is the sponsor: a signed job offer, MoHRE work-permit approval (or the free-zone equivalent), an entry permit valid sixty days, then medical, Emirates ID biometrics, contract registration and the residence visa — typically two to four weeks once documents are complete. Roles are classified by MoHRE skill level; levels 1–2 require an attested degree, levels 3–4 a diploma. Our UAE company, licensed for HR consultancy in Dubai, advises on classification, attestation and Emiratisation standing and coordinates the sequence with your PRO — it does not place or supply workers, and the employment relationship is yours.

Everything here is subject to applicable UAE MoHRE or free-zone, licensing, attestation and visa requirements.

Frequently asked questions

  • Can you find a chef de partie with hotel experience?

    Yes — five years' Gulf or cruise-line experience is common in the candidate base; we screen for the cuisine and the volume you run.

  • Do cooks need attested certificates?

    Chef de partie and above are MoHRE level 3–4 and need an attested diploma or NC II plus experience; commis at level 5 need a secondary certificate.

  • Halal and hygiene?

    Candidates from Gulf kitchens hold food-safety certificates; UAE municipality food-handler training is completed on arrival.