Hiring Okonomiyaki and Monjayaki Staff: Kitchen and Table Griddle

Okonomiyaki and monjayaki are griddle food, but they are not teppanyaki. There is no knife show, no premium beef and usually no chef performing for a counter of guests. The skills are batter, cabbage, heat control and speed, and in many shops the ability to teach a table of strangers how to cook their own dinner.

If you run a steak and seafood teppan counter, read hiring a teppanyaki chef instead. This guide is for okonomiyaki and monjayaki concepts.

1. Three formats, three different hires

Monjayaki, the Tokyo dish of a runny batter cooked inside a ring of chopped fillings and eaten straight off the griddle with small spatulas, almost always sits in the third group. Few guests outside Japan know how to cook it, so the staff member at the table is the product.

2. Skills to screen for

Batter and cabbage

The batter (flour, dashi, often grated yam) and the cut of the cabbage decide the texture. Ask how they make batter in bulk, how long it keeps, and how they adjust when cabbage is wetter than usual. This is the okonomiyaki equivalent of a ramen chef's soup question.

Heat zones

A large griddle has hot and cooler areas. A good cook uses them deliberately: searing pork on the hot side, finishing thick pancakes on the cooler side. Watch for this in the test.

Volume

For kitchen cooked formats, ask how many pancakes they had on the griddle at peak and how long each took. For Hiroshima style, ask how they staged layers so the noodles were ready when the pancake was.

Sauce and toppings

Many shops buy okonomiyaki sauce; some blend their own. Either is fine, but the cook should know what the sauce is doing and whether your supplier's product contains allergens you need to declare.

3. Guest cooking tables: the host skill

Table griddle restaurants hire for a different mix. Staff need to:

• Explain the dish in the local language in under a minute.
• Cook the first one while guests watch, or cook the whole meal for guests who prefer it.
• Keep an eye on several tables at once and step in before a monjayaki runs off the edge.
• Watch for burns. The griddle is hot, the table is small, and children are common guests.
• Clean and reset the griddle between parties quickly.

This is a front of house role with cooking skills. Many owners get better results by hiring outgoing servers and training them to cook than by hiring cooks and asking them to host. See front of house hiring and training local staff.

4. Food safety and allergens on a shared griddle

Okonomiyaki contains several listed allergens in one dish: wheat, egg (in the batter and in mayonnaise), fish (katsuobushi and usually dashi) and often shellfish such as shrimp or squid. In the US, wheat, eggs, fish and crustacean shellfish are all among the nine major allergens. In the EU and UK, the 14 listed allergens include cereals containing gluten, eggs, fish, crustaceans and molluscs, so squid counts too.

The griddle is shared. A pancake without shrimp cooked where a shrimp pancake just was is not shrimp free. Ask candidates how they handled allergy orders: a cleaned and separated area, fresh utensils, and honesty with the guest when separation is not possible.

Pork belly is a common filling. In US food codes based on the FDA Food Code, such as Washington State's, intact meat must reach 145°F (63°C) for 15 seconds, and ground or chopped meat 155°F (68°C) for 17 seconds. At table griddles, guests may undercook their own food, so staff should know when to step in.

5. Where candidates come from

• Okonomiyaki and monjayaki chains in Japan, including those with overseas branches. Good on systems and speed.
• Independent shops in Osaka, Hiroshima and Tokyo. Regional style matters. A Hiroshima cook will make Hiroshima style unless told otherwise.
• Teppanyaki and yakisoba cooks. Griddle skills transfer. Batter and layering need teaching.
• Working holiday makers. A good fit for table griddle floor roles, which reward language and personality as much as cooking. See Canada's working holiday route.

6. A practical test

1. Batter from scratch using your flour and dashi, then four pancakes at once. Check thickness, colour and centre doneness.
2. A Hiroshima style pancake if that is on your menu. Time it.
3. A table demonstration. Seat two colleagues as guests and have the candidate explain and cook a monjayaki or okonomiyaki in English (or your local language). This is the test that decides table griddle hires.

7. Pay and visa notes

No official statistics break out okonomiyaki cooks. In the US, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median of $17.98 an hour for Restaurant Cooks and $62,470 a year for Chefs and Head Cooks (May 2025). Most okonomiyaki roles sit with cooks. A head chef who designs the menu and trains the team sits with chefs.

Casual griddle concepts face the same visa issue as other casual formats. In Australia, Chef and Cook are on the Core Skills Occupation List but a caveat excludes limited service restaurants, so a counter service okonomiyaki shop should take advice. For a full service restaurant, and for other countries, start with visa sponsorship for Japanese chefs.

General information, not legal, food safety or immigration advice. Food safety rules, pay data and visa criteria are as published at the sources below as of September 2026 and can change. Check the rules your local health department and immigration authority apply before you act.