Spaces & Estates · Open role
Cook for how people need to feel and work.
You own daily cuisine for a Lucentive Spaces property: what's cooked, how it's sourced, how it adapts to whoever's eating that week. Residents deep in a build, families visiting, never a negotiation.
Mission
What the role does and why it matters here.
Lucentive Spaces is Lucentive Studios' hospitality venture: AI-native sanctuaries on the Portuguese coast where residents come to build without friction. Food is not a service line item here, it is one of the conditions that keeps a household running well. As Private Chef you own daily cuisine for the residents and guests of a property: what's cooked, how it's sourced, and how it adapts to the person eating it that week. You work close to people, not a menu board. A resident deep in a long build cycle needs different fuel than a family visiting for a week. You read that, adjust, and never make it a negotiation.
Responsibilities
What you would own.
Plan and cook daily meals for residents and guests, adjusting to schedule, appetite, and mood without being asked twice.
Source ingredients locally where possible, and know why a substitution matters, not just that one is needed.
Handle a wide range of dietary needs and preferences (allergies, religious, athletic, medical) as a normal part of the job, not an exception.
Keep the kitchen, storage, and food safety standards at a level that would pass any inspection unannounced.
Coordinate with the household team so meal timing fits the day's activities, arrivals, and departures.
Design menus that work for repeat guests over weeks without going stale or repetitive.
Manage the kitchen budget and waste with the same care you'd apply if it were your own money.
How you think and work
Six traits the work demands.
Craft and hands-on experience matter here, and the useful background below names what we look for. But the filter underneath is disposition: the six traits are what the work actually asks of you, every day, around residents and guests.
Agentic intuition
You read a room and the people in it the way a seasoned host does: you notice when something is off before it's said, and you know when to step in and when to leave well alone.
You notice a guest's energy dropping before they say anything, and adjust the next meal without waiting for a request.
Critical thinking
Confident-sounding output gets the same scrutiny as anything else, your own work included.
When a dietary request doesn't add up (two conflicting restrictions, an unclear allergy), you ask the right question instead of guessing.
Curiosity
You pull on threads. You read outside the lane. You follow a question past the first plausible answer.
You try what grows within reach before reaching for what's familiar, and you know why the difference matters.
Agency
You move without being told. You decide, ship, own the call. No one has to write the playbook for you.
You've reworked a menu the morning of service because the delivery wasn't what you needed, and nobody had to tell you to.
Systems thinking, long view
You see how the parts connect, and where this goes in three years.
You plan a week's menus knowing repeat guests will notice repetition before anyone else does.
Leadership instinct
You set a clear standard for the people around you and maintain it under pressure, moving between a guest, a vendor, and your own team in the same hour without losing what matters.
You run the kitchen so cleanly that anyone stepping in for a shift could follow it without a briefing.
Useful background
- Professional cooking experience in a private household, fine-dining kitchen, or high-end hospitality setting.
- Comfort designing menus from scratch, not just executing someone else's.
- Working knowledge of food safety, allergen handling, and dietary accommodation.
- Calm under a live, unpredictable schedule; guests don't eat on a fixed clock.
- Portuguese or English fluent enough for daily coordination with the household and guests.
- Experience cooking for athletes, founders, or people on demanding schedules.
- A personal point of view on sourcing and seasonality you can defend, not just repeat.
- Comfort running a kitchen with a small or rotating support team.
The useful background is where the craft shows; the traits are where the fit does. We read an application for both. Applications in English or Portuguese are equally welcome.
Logistics
How the role is set up.
- Location
- On-location on the Lisbon/Cascais coast, Portugal.
- Engagement
- Full-time or seasonal.
- Start
- Discussed individually.
- Language
- English or Portuguese.