About us

Chefs from Spain – unique in Europe

Chefs from Spain is a Dutch company that mediates between employers and employees in the hospitality industry. We focus on vacancies in the kitchen, service, reception and housekeeping, both for professionals and interns.

Our candidates generally come from Spain and Portugal. They are ambitious professionals who are looking for a new challenge in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany or Austria.

The hospitality companies we work for are looking for passionate employees with a good education, a good command of the English language, an excellent mentality and a pleasant working attitude. They look beyond their own country borders and have only one goal: to fill that difficult vacancy(s) as quickly as possible.

Read all about our working method here.

The history of Chefs from Spain

Chefs from Spain was set up in 2018 by Dick van Ostaden, born and raised in the hospitality industry, of which the last 25 years as entrepreneur of Restaurant Boshuys Hermitage in Oisterwijk (The Netherlands).

During his time as an entrepreneur, Dick was frequently confronted with the difficulty of filling vacancies, particularly in the kitchen. The staff shortage was already considerable in those days and just creativity was often no longer enough. Frustration grew.

Dick came up with the idea of bringing cooks from Spain and this turned out to be a good idea. Integration and adaptation went smoothly, communication was no problem and they turned out to be people with dedication and passion. Moreover, they had a good education, an excellent mentality and a pleasant working attitude. Dick had his manpower in the kitchen and was very enthusiastic.

His positive experiences were frequently mentioned in conversations with fellow entrepreneurs and one by one they showed interest. They too were having difficulty finding experienced kitchen staff. Dick mediated for them without any obligations and eventually more and more entrepreneurs had a Spanish cook in their kitchen.

In the end, this mediation took an enormous flight and Dick decided to stop his catering activities and focus completely on the mediation in Spanish cooks and later also in serving and/or facility staff. Cooks from Spain was born!

A lot of media attention 

The enormous shortage of employees in the hotel and catering industry is a regular topic in the media. Almost every entrepreneur is confronted with it and the frustration is great.

The working method of Chefs from Spain therefore did not remain unnoticed for long and various media paid attention to this new initiative. Both locally and nationally, Dick was approached in recent years to air his views.

Meanwhile, Chefs from Spain has become an important player in the mediation between foreign employees and hospitality businesses in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Austria. To date, hundreds of employees have already started work to their full satisfaction and we have dozens of satisfied catering companies as clients.

View a selection of items in the media here.