Some content was translated automatically. Show original
A working restaurant, not a cooking course. You will prep, cook, plate, serve guests and clean down alongside our head chef — who arrived here as a volunteer himself. Our four-course menu is rebuilt around a new world cuisine every three weeks. Five shifts, 25h maximum, two days off guaranteed. Your own private room, all meals, €30 a week and a fully insured Belgian volunteer contract. Since 2016: 350+ volunteers, 45 nationalities.
25 hours of help per week
Cooking: Choose the menu, pick ingredients and cook delicious dishes.
Kitchen Hand: Help prepare, finish and serve meals.
Bartending: Make and serve drinks and help maintain the beverages inventory.
2 days off per week
Private Room: You will have a bed in a private room. In other words, a room just for you.
Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.
Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.
Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.
Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.
Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.
Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely
Fluent English
Over 18 years old
Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers
European Union Passport
Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa
Welcome to Simone's Kitchen.
We are the Good Food Institute VZW, a non-profit cooking school that operates inside Antwerp's first vegan restaurant. Since 2016 more than 350 people from 45 nationalities have trained here.
Please understand what this is before you apply: it is a working restaurant, not a cooking course. There are no classes and no demonstrations. You learn by doing the work, on a real service, with real guests waiting.
Every three weeks we rebuild the entire four-course menu around a different world cuisine, reimagined through whole-food, organic, plant-based cooking. Korean one cycle, French the next. You work through every stage of it, mise en place, preparation, seasoning, plating, service, so that by the end of a cycle you can produce the whole menu yourself.
We take two or three volunteers at a time. That is deliberate: it means you are actually taught rather than parked at a station.
Our head chef Davide arrived here as a volunteer himself, and so did our founder. Every head chef this kitchen has ever had came through this programme first. That is not a coincidence, and it is the best description of how we work that we can give you.
Five shifts a week, twenty-five hours maximum. The restaurant serves dinner Thursday to Monday. Evening shifts start at 17:00, an hour before the first guests. We deliberately do not put an end time on them: some nights finish early and some run later.
• Thursday, preparation from 09:00, then the evening shift from 17:00
• Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, evening shift from 17:00
• Tuesday and Wednesday, normally your two days off
Two full days off every week is guaranteed. Every third week a new menu starts, which adds a preparation shift on the Wednesday evening. That week your two days move and a shift comes off elsewhere, so it is always five shifts and always two days off.
What you will actually do: mise en place and preparation, cooking alongside Davide, plating for service, welcoming and serving guests, making and serving drinks, and the cleaning and clean-down that any real kitchen involves. As you find your feet you take on more of the menu. Volunteers who stay longer get involved in the creative side of a menu change, choosing dishes, testing them, building the next cuisine from scratch.
Everyone here cooks. Everyone serves guests. Everyone cleans. There is no version of this placement where somebody only does the interesting part, and we would rather you knew that now than discovered it in week one.
WHAT WE ASK OF YOU
• Turn up on time and ready to work. A small kitchen notices immediately when someone doesn't.
• Tell us early if something is wrong. We would far rather hear it in week one than read it in a review afterwards.
• Clean up after yourself, in the kitchen and in your room.
• Look after the other volunteers. You live together as well as work together, and that matters as much as the cooking.
WHAT YOU CAN RELY ON FROM US
• The shifts and the days off we promised. Five shifts, 25 hours maximum, two full days off every week.
• Your own private room in the building above the restaurant, all year round. Two of the rooms are on the top floor and get warm during the handful of genuinely hot weeks Belgium gets each summer, so fans are provided.
• Breakfast and lunch you prepare yourself, freely, from our kitchen and food stock. Dinner from the restaurant menu whenever suits you, and you do not have to wait for service to finish. You are not obliged to eat the menu every night either.
• €30 per week expense reimbursement, usually paid at the end of your stay, or earlier if you ask.
• A signed volunteer agreement under Belgian law with Good Food Institute VZW, with full insurance cover for the whole of your stay.
• Laundry on Wednesdays. One drink a week from the bar.
WHEN YOU ARE ACCEPTED
You get a login to the Simone's Kitchen Hub straight away, well before you travel. It holds your shift pattern, the house guidelines, what food is available to you and our full recipe library, so you know exactly what you are walking into. One click in the Hub adds you to our WhatsApp group, which is where we sort out arrivals and shifts day to day. Complete your agreed stay and your Hub access is permanent.
WHAT TO BRING
Chef jackets are provided for service, so there is no uniform to buy. Two things you do need for the kitchen: closed shoes, and if you have long hair, something to tie it back with.
PRACTICAL
EU passport holders or valid visa holders only. Minimum two weeks, maximum twelve. English is our working language. No previous kitchen experience needed, and most of our best people had none.
