Careers
Everything run by James Thomson is designed to impress.
Food Illustrated
The Witchery by the Castle was the start of a collection of innovative restaurants and hotels owned by renowned Scottish restaurateur and hotelier. James is described by Time Out as "Edinburgh's star restaurateur" and was a recent Restaurateur of the Year, joining an elite academy that includes Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsay and Sir Terence Conran as former winners.
The Witchery has a world-wide reputation as a exceptional dining experience delivering some of the best Scottish produce in exceptional surroundings.
As you would expect, standards are high throughout all of James' collection, but if you are looking to further your career with an innovative industry leader, then we may just have the position for you. We are passionate about giving our guests exceptional and memorable experiences and have a strong and ongoing commitment to developing our staff's skills and expertise too.
Many of us who work alongside James at the Witchery have been with him for a decade or more, some of us for far longer! Some of us have developed their careers in different parts of the collection, whilst others have developed new and different roles as their careers have progressed. All share the same exceptional passion for delighting our guests at every opportunity
The Witchery offers a wide range of career options but there are currently no vacancies.
We also have a range of vacancies at our sister hotel, the five star Prestonfield. Current exciting opportunities to join us at Prestonfield in Spring 2012 include:
Chef de Partie
To join a skilled and enthusiastic brigade working in a busy modern environment with some of Scotland's best food and produce.
Weekend Breakfast Chef
We are looking for an entusiast to deliver an exceptional breakfast experience to guests enjoying a five star experience each weekend
We look forward to hearing from you. So, if you have the appropriate skills, a passion for hospitality and would like to join us at on of Scotland's most vibrant hospitality businesses then please email us at recruitment@prestonfield.com to apply.
We look forward to hearing from you. So, if you have the appropriate skills, a passion for hospitality and would like to join us at on of Scotland's most vibrant hospitality businesses then please email us at hr@thewitchery.com to apply.
Message from James Thomson OBE
Thank you for your interest in working at with us at the Witchery by the Castle. I hope that you will explore further and find out if working at the Witchery, or elsewhere, in the rest of my collection, could be right for you.
The Witchery is a very special place, and so are our people. If you are passionate about hospitality and think you have the necessary skills and commitment to join us, then we look forward to hearing from you.
James Thomson OBE
Proprietor the Witchery by the Castle.
A Day at the Witchery, As...
A Busy Reservationist
For many guests our reservation team are the first experience of the warm and luxurious welcome that awaits them at The Witchery
We are busy taking reservation calls seven days a week, so I might be working a variety of eight hour shifts between 9am and 11pm.
The day starts with calling tomorrow's restaurant guests to reconfirm their reservations. We often take reservations up to a year in advance so it is important that we confirm the time and numbers of guests and any special requirements so that lunch and dinner service run smoothly. We'll also work closely with reception to check Witchery suite reservations for guests and make sure that any special requests, such flowers and dinner reservations have been attended to.
Calls come in a constant stream so you have to be focused to work on several tasks at once. Guests know that a stay at the Witchery a unique and individual experience, so the questions are often quite detailed. We need to understand everything about the restaurant and the suites to deal with all of the enquiries - from what is the style of the room to what size is the four-poster bed. Some general knowledge on Edinburgh is useful too, guests often want advice on what to do during their visit.
As well as the telephone enquiries, often hundreds a day, there is an increasing flow of email enquiries and online bookings to check. Peak times can be frenetic – August, with the Edinburgh festival is a blur, but you have to remain welcoming and cheerful all the time, especially when letting a guest know that we are fully booked.
As the Witchery is part of James Thomson's Collection, we can also take bookings for his other restaurants, the rooftop Tower Restaurant, Rhubarb and our five star hotel in Edinburgh, Prestonfield. It gives us a great range of restaurants to offer our guests. Gift vouchers are increasingly popular gifts, so every day we'll arrange for people to buy gift vouchers too.
We know that staying or dining at the Witchery is a very special experience for guests and we hope that by dealing with their bookings well, we have already started to make their visit memorable.
As a Housekeeper...
Our diligent housekeepers ensure every detail of a guest's stay in one of our rooms or suites is an indulgent experience
As one of the housekeeping team I've got a lot of responsibility for how a guest experiences their stay at the Witchery.
Starting at 8am, the first tasks area to make sure all of the Witchery's delicious "picnic hamper" breakfasts are ready to be delivered to each guest's suite. Guests love the indulgence of a delicious breakfast served in the luxurious surroundings of their Witchery suite, but some can't resist the fun of enjoying an a la carte breakfast served by candlelight in the original Witchery dining room.
Guests really love every moment of their time in our suites, so early check-outs are fairly rare, and suites will have to be serviced between 11 and 2. Staff lunch can be a quick affair, but gives a chance to catch up with colleagues from other departments.
Each of the Witchery's eight suites are unique and individual, but all have the same luxury amenities and need the same attention to detail to ensure bathrooms are pristine and beds are plumped and welcoming.
With lots of check-outs it is a race against time to have suites ready for arriving guests, so we'll work with reception to arrange that rooms needed for the earliest arrivals are ready first.
When guests arrive we'll meet them at reception and show them to their suite. It is always great to see the reaction of new guests when they first fee their suite and great to welcome back guests returning to the Witchery. Work doesn't stop when guests have checked in. We'll have specific requests to deal with, hypoallergenic pillows perhaps, or some laundry or dry cleaning to arrange.
As guests head for dinner we'll start to "turn down" the suites. This is a luxury that guests really appreciate, so they come back to their room with curtains drawn, lights dimmed, a welcoming bed and their bathroom all in order.
It is lovely to get a comment from a guest about how welcoming they felt their room was and many of them leave very entertaining messages in the guest books that are in each suite. It is great to be part of the team that is as unique and characterful as the suites at the Witchery are!
Maintaining a Historic Building...
Built in 1595...and lovingly maintained daily ever since.
The Witchery is such a quirky mix, a collection of historic old buildings, packed with antiques but packed full of hidden high technology too. We work as an in house maintenance team and try to cover most of the skills needed to keep everything functioning well for our staff and looking great for the guests. First job of the day is to look at any maintenance requests that have been filed overnight and seeing if any problem can be sorted by us. If it isn't a skill we have in-house then we'll rely on one of our regular specialist contractors to sort it out, so it might be a call to the upholsterer, plumber or chimneysweep. If one of our technical systems has a fault then we might be working with fire alarm, air-conditioning or lift engineers or one of the engineers who look after our IT and communications systems.
Keeping the Witchery looking special for our guests is our biggest priority. Painters are constantly maintaining gleaming paintwork when they are not redecorating areas during refurbishments and, with miles of cabling and hundreds of lights and appliances, our electrician is kept busy too.
Whilst we've all got our own tasks, we know we need to pitch in when something bigger comes up. Christmas means everyone putting decorations together, a new suite about to open means we are all committed to meeting that deadline and a head of a
As if keeping the Witchery up to five-star standard wasn't a big enough challenge we've also got the other properties in James Thomson's Collection to look after, so part of the day could be spent at the Prestonfield or our rooftop Tower Restaurant nearby.
Our colleagues depend on us to keep things working well so they can do their own jobs and keep guests happy. Working in those back of house areas might not be a glamorous as working in a lavish suite, but it's just as important to the working of the hotel.
In a Busy Kitchen...
Want to work with some of the very best produce that Scotland has to offer?
No two days are the same is something of a cliché, at the Witchery it couldn't be truer!
There are so many things involved in the mix of a truly great restaurant-with-rooms, breakfast starts the day followed by busy lunches in the Secret Garden and soon guests are arriving for theatre supper before the restaurant fills with diners for dinner at the Witchery.
There's breakfast – always busy, but then we include it in the rate at the Witchery and guests really seem to enjoy a delicious continental breakfast served in their suite. There is more involved than you'd think; juices are very freshly squeezed, not the "freshly opened" that you'd find elsewhere and pastries are home-baked of course. We don't cure the bacon, smoke the kippers or make the sausages, but we do put a lot of effort into finding suppliers who can supply the very best of these. With Scotland's natural larder on our doorstep that should be easy, but sourcing small artisan suppliers occupies a lot of our Head Chef's time and tracking down the very best produce is vital.
The morning is devoted to prep, seeing deliveries are checked, making sure orders have been fulfilled and ensuring what has been delivered meets our exacting standards.
Staff lunch is served before midday and gives staff from all departments an opportunity to mix. For us it is an early warning that lunch is about to start and, not much more than a hour since you sent up the last kipper or eggs Benedict, you are sending up breads for the first lunch guests. We'll also bake the breads, make the chocolates and petit fours and still have freshly baked cookies in every guest's suite when they check in.
Prep continues. There is a lot of it, but then the Witchery is expecting a lot of guests and chefs will be busy as we work towards the crunch time of evening service. Whilst we hope the experience is a relaxed one for the guests, in the kitchens the pressure is on.
Evening service can be long and hard, it can be hours after the first platter of Scottish seafood goes out until the last tray of petit fours are sent, but it is a huge thrill to deal with the logistics and deliver really great food. Surprisingly quickly service comes to an end and it is time to clean down stations and see orders go in for tomorrow,
Deliveries of fantastic produce will have been arriving at the kitchen door all day too. We've a great collection of suppliers who are as passionate about great Scottish produce and fine Scottish cooking at we are .
If you believe in an exceptional guest experience, every time, this could be the place for you
One other profession uses the term front-of-house, the theatre, and the similarities are perhaps closer than you think!
As soon as you walk into the Witchery's fascinating collection of buildings you know you are on a stage set but guests might not realize just how choreographed a performance they are about to see.
First job of the day is to change into uniform and look smart before joining the rest of the team. An early shift means setting up for breakfast and soon it's time to start preparing for the lunch and dinner services ahead, that means lots of cutlery to polish, plates to buff and napkins to be folded.
The Witchery's standards are high and the Witchery has its own unique way of doing things, so whatever it is there will be the Witchery way to do it. I've worked in great places with demanding standards before, but somehow this is different, more personal. I suppose that might be the effect of the owner being here every day, his eye for spotting something that needs attention is legendary!
An early staff lunch gives a chance to catch up with colleagues before the first guests arrive for lunch.
Before service we'll have a detailed briefing so we know what to expect, what special requests there are. Head Chef will explain any new dishes on the menu and which artisan cheeses we are offering. If we are lucky staff tea might be followed by a tasting of new menu dishes. This isn't just a treat – it is important that we know just what a dish contains and how it is presented so that that we can help diners choose.
Evening service if often busy which could mean up to another 100 diners to look after. We'll work with the bar and the sommelier who'll be advising on wines and serving drinks, we'll keep reception busy with calls for taxis and departing guests need in their coats and we'll admire the managers who are keeping an eye on that night's action
Busy nights and weekends are a great adrenaline buzz as lots of people arrive and the hotel is full of guests. It is a thrill to see them leave happy and fulfilling to be part of a team that has delivered that day's performance. Breakfast will be along all too soon, I'm glad I'm on a late start!
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