Line Cook

Looking for inspired cooks who want to learn, grow, and master their craft.

The Deer and The Dove is looking for passionate Line Cooks to join our small, driven kitchen team.

Opened in 2019 by Chef Terry Koval and his wife, Jenn, The Deer and The Dove is rooted in the Decatur community and built around a deep respect for farmers, ranchers, seasonality, sustainability, and whole-animal cookery.

Chef Terry Koval was named James Beard Award Best Chef: Southeast in 2023 , and The Deer and The Dove has been Michelin Recommended in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 . Our kitchen continues to focus on what got us here in the first place: great ingredients, strong technique, creativity, hard work, and taking care of the people around us.

WHAT WE DO

We are a true scratch kitchen working with some of the best ingredients we can source from local farmers and ranchers.

Our cooks have the opportunity to work hands-on with:

• Whole-animal butchery
• Pasture and humanly raised -raised pigs, ducks, pheasant, and wild game
• Offal and lesser-used cuts
• Charcuterie and sausage making
• Fermentation, curing, preservation, and zero-waste techniques
• Open-hearth and wood-fired cookery
• Classical cooking techniques, stocks, sauces, and proper fundamentals
• Seasonal produce from local farms
• Menu development driven by what our farmers bring us

We don't just open boxes and put food on plates. We cook.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We're looking for cooks with a professional, positive attitude, strong work ethic, and a genuine willingness to learn.

You should be clean, organized, dependable, curious, and able to work as part of a team. Experience is important, but attitude and the desire to become a better cook matter just as much.

We're especially interested in someone who wants to learn more about whole-animal butchery, live-fire cooking, charcuterie, fermentation, preservation, and working creatively with local ingredients.

We take the food seriously—but we also believe a kitchen should be a positive place where people enjoy coming to work.

This is an opportunity to join a small team where you won't be stuck doing the same station and the same prep every day. You'll be surrounded by cooks who care about the craft, and you'll have the opportunity to learn, contribute ideas, and grow.

If you're looking for a kitchen where you can push yourself, learn real techniques, work with incredible ingredients, and become a stronger cook, we'd like to meet you.