How to Interview a Chef in Japan Online: Steps to an Offer

Run the interview as one step in a five week sequence: invite with a written agenda in Japanese, hold a 60 to 90 minute video call with a briefed interpreter and a second camera on the hands, then a practical test, a separate call to agree terms, reference checks, and a written offer. Agree salary, start date and notice in Japan before the offer, not after it. Plan one to three months between signed offer and departure.

1. The steps from first call to offer

An interview with a chef abroad costs you little. What follows it (visa, flights, housing) does not. So the interview has one job: decide who is worth a practical test. Keep terms and technique in separate calls, or neither gets proper attention.

2. A week by week schedule

Count back from the date you need the chef in your kitchen. The process below takes about five weeks. Before it sits your visa route's processing time, which varies too much by country and route to give one figure; take it from the visa guide for your country (start with visa sponsorship for a Japanese chef).

Why one to three months after the offer: under Article 627 of Japan's Civil Code, employment with no fixed term ends two weeks after notice. That is the legal minimum. Some workplaces ask for longer in their work rules, and most chefs want to hand over properly and leave on good terms. If the chef is on a fixed term contract, different rules apply, so ask early.

Speed matters. MHLW's figures show 2.18 openings per applicant for food preparation workers in Japan in July 2026. A candidate who waits three weeks for your decision may have accepted another job.

3. Designing the online interview

• Pick a slot that suits a working cook. After service at night, or the morning of a day off, Japan time. Asking a chef to miss a shift for you starts badly.
• Send the agenda in advance, in Japanese. Who will attend, how long it takes, what you will ask them to show. Candidates perform better when they are not guessing.
• Two cameras. One on the face; a phone on a stand for the hands when you ask them to sharpen a knife or show a fish. Two minutes of hands tells you more than twenty of talk.
• Keep the panel small. Owner, one person who can judge technique, the interpreter. Bring your local sous chef or front of house lead in for the last 15 minutes only, so the candidate meets the people they will work with.
• Show the restaurant. Walk the kitchen, the counter, the staff area and, if you can, the housing on a phone. "It was not what I was told" is a common reason for early resignations.
• Recording. If you want to record, ask first and say who will see it and when it will be deleted.

4. Working with an interpreter

Run the technical block in Japanese. You want to test knowledge, not vocabulary; test English separately if the job needs it (our guide on preparing a chef for an English interview covers that side).

• Choose the interpreter for kitchen vocabulary. A bilingual staff member who has worked in a Japanese kitchen often does better than a general interpreter who has not. Whoever it is should not also score the candidate.
• Brief them 15 minutes before. Share the question list and a short glossary (sanmai oroshi, shari, hikarimono, makanai). Ask them to translate answers in full, not summarise.
• Speak in short units and wait. Consecutive interpreting roughly doubles the time, which is why the first interview needs up to 90 minutes.
• Watch the answer, not the translation. Hesitation, confidence and the order in which a chef describes a process come through in any language.

We found no official rate for interpreters in this setting. Ask two providers for a quote per hour, with a minimum charge, before you book.

5. Agreeing terms before the offer

Mismatched terms found after an offer waste the whole process. In the terms call, confirm:

• Salary. Their current pay and the minimum they would accept, gross and in your currency. For reference, MHLW's 2025 wage survey puts regular monthly pay for cooks in Japan at ¥286,600 (June 2025). Your offer is usually set by the visa salary floor and local market rate instead: see sushi chef salary by country.
• Start date and the notice they must give their current employer.
• Passport expiry and which documents they can supply: graduation certificate, certificate of employment, cook's licence, police certificate (see police certificates from Japan).
• Housing and relocation: what you provide and what they pay.
• Hours and days off, stated as numbers.
• Their plan for two to three years out: staying, moving on, returning to open their own place. It shapes the contract term, not the decision.

Do not ask about marriage, children or family care, even out of concern for the move. Ask instead: "Is there anything in the next one to two years in Japan that you cannot move?" The full list of questions to leave out, country by country, is in the question bank. Send a written summary of what was agreed the same day; the offer then follows from it (chef offer letter template).

6. Invitation template (Japanese and English)

Send both versions in one email. Replace the brackets.

7. What to do this week

1. Fix the five week calendar and count back from your target start date, adding your visa processing time.
2. Book an interpreter and a chef who can judge technique for the first interview slots.
3. Print the scoring sheet from the question bank.
4. Send the invitation above to your shortlist.

General information, not legal, employment or immigration advice. Rules on recruitment and notice differ by country. Check the primary sources below and local law, and consult a professional where needed.