Cost of goods
Where the margin is leaking, what it is costing you a week, and what it takes to stop it.
Surry Hills, Sydney · Available now
Consulting · Head chef
Alexis Petit
Chef and kitchen consultant. I fix the numbers. I lift the experience.
Co-founder and co-owner of Atelier, awarded a Bib Gourmand in the inaugural Michelin Guide New Zealand.
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01 / Restaurant
Bib Gourmand
Co-founder and co-owner of Atelier, K'Road. Awarded in the inaugural Michelin Guide New Zealand.
02 / Experience
10+ years
Leading professional kitchens. High end dining, founder led venues, multi-site.
03 / Numbers
Open book P&L
Pub to bistro turnaround. COGS and labour targets, weekly KPI reporting.
04 / Scale
250+ covers
Touring and event catering. P!nk, The Jonas Brothers, 50 Cent.
About Alexis Petit
About · 01
I have spent ten years running kitchens: co-founding a restaurant I still co-own and taking it to a Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand, leading a pub to bistro transformation, and cooking for touring artists in venues that changed every night.
I started in fine arts in Paris and ended up on the pass. Along the way I learned the part most chefs avoid: the numbers. Food cost, labour, systems, hiring. And the room itself, because I design and refit kitchens too.
I did not learn that out of duty. It made sense to me, and I ended up loving it. The numbers tell you whether you are performing or not. Without them you are running a kitchen on feel, and feel is generous with you right up until the month closes.
That is the work I do now, for venues that need it.
Prep · Plate · Service
What I do
What I do · 02
Most kitchens don't have a cooking problem. They have a systems problem, a layout problem, or a handover problem between the kitchen and the floor. I work with owners and operators to find where the money is going, fix it, and build the structure so it stays fixed.
Space is as important as systems.
Kitchen systems
Digital ops platforms, recipe costing, reporting the team will actually use. I have implemented Operandio and Loaded on a live site.
Kitchen design and refit
Layout, flow, and the shape of the room. I have designed and refitted kitchens, and I work in CAD and 3D, so you get the plan drawn rather than described. Where the sections sit decides how many hands you need on a Friday.
Bar, floor and kitchen as one
Atelier put me on the other side of the pass. I have worked the bar and the floor, so I can find where the handover breaks and rebuild it. Ticket flow, timing, prep that supports the bar, a floor that knows what the kitchen is doing.
Menu costing and design
Costed to a target, engineered for margin, written so it sells the dishes you want to sell.
Recruitment and structure
Hiring chefs, building a brigade, and setting a structure that fits your site instead of someone else's.
Operational troubleshooting
Kitchens in trouble. Short, direct work to get service back under control.
Business model feedback
An honest read on whether the model works, from someone who still sits on the owner's side of the table.
Software for your venue
If the tool your kitchen needs does not exist, I build it. Costing, ordering, prep sheets, reporting, whatever the actual problem is. That is how Pleach started.
Also available for
Head chef and senior relief placements, plus function and event kitchens. Sydney based, NZ citizen, full Australian working rights.
The software · 03
I built Pleach because nothing on the market did the job.
Ingredient libraries, live food cost percentages, menu level margins. I use it in my consulting work, and I can show you yours in an afternoon.
And if your venue needs something it does not do, I will build that too. Same method as the kitchen: find the real problem, then make the thing that solves it.
Most chefs advise on systems. I write them.
Product shot / 16:10 / recipe costing, live food cost %
Product shot / 3:2 / menu margins
Track record · 04
Three kitchens that made the point.
Co-founder and co-owner · Ongoing
Atelier
French wine and tapas on K'Road, Auckland. I co-founded it, I still co-own it, and I ran it for nearly four years. It was awarded a Bib Gourmand in the inaugural Michelin Guide New Zealand. Owning a venue is where I learned the P&L side of a kitchen properly, because there was nobody else to hand it to. It also put me behind the bar and on the floor, which is where you find out how much of a bad service is really a handover problem.
Head Chef · Apr 2025 to Sep 2026
Twofold Bistro Brewery
Auckland. I led a full pub to bistro concept transition and owned the kitchen financials, COGS and labour targets, inside an open book management framework with weekly KPI reporting. Implemented Operandio and Loaded. Recruited and built the team from scratch.
Touring chef · 2023 to 2025
Upbeat Food
Large scale catering for groups of 250 and up, plus bespoke artist meals, in a different venue most nights. Clients included P!nk, The Jonas Brothers and 50 Cent. Nothing teaches you to build a kitchen out of what is in front of you like touring does.
Before that: I helped open Daily Bread and then worked across its sites through the expansion, Chef de Partie at Soul Bar and Bistro, and a first winter season in Queenstown that took me from dishwasher to commis.
In their words · 05
What owners say.
Bring me the menu and the P&L.
The first conversation is free and honest. I will tell you what I see.