This week, we’re checking in with three chefs of the gifted culinary team from Sandals Whitehouse European Village & Spa in Westmoreland.

Marlon Williams

Garde Manger, Sandals Whitehouse European Village & Spa

As a young boy growing up in Smithfield District, Westmoreland, Williams’s introduction to food handling and preparation came through his family’s butchery business, which supplied meat to the supermarkets in Savanna-la-Mar. “I remember eating roast meat — sometimes the remnants of a sale — cooked on wood fire,” he recalled, “and carrying my calabash and pot into the bush to ‘run a boat’. After graduating from Savanna-la-Mar Secondary (now Godfrey Stewart High), he began his journey in the hospitality industry; first as a waiter at Risky Business and then as a line cook at Mariner’s Inn. Before long, he moved on to make his mark in a number of highly respected hotels along the Negril coastline. “I started out as a trainee in the pantry, and thereafter, I worked between the pantry and the range, sometimes as a pantry assistant and other times as a chef de partie.” In December 2009 Williams went to Sandals Whitehouse as the resort’s sole garde manger. “In addition to the pantry, I also supervised the butchery and the staff cafeteria,” he added. Of his current task, he said: “What is important to me is maintaining the standards, exceeding expectations and making sure that my team is happy.” A firm believer in giving back, he volunteers for cooking presentations at the Culloden Vocational Training Centre and churches within the community. He states that, “Training and motivating others is something that I thoroughly enjoy.” As for the future, he is working towards becoming an executive sous-chef, but the devoted husband and father said he’s not pushing too hard for the executive chef title just yet. “I’m a big family man, so I have to ensure that whatever I do will allow my two loves to coexist in perfect harmony — my love for my family and my love for the kitchen.”

Laire Robinson

Executive Sous-Chef, Sandals Whitehouse European Village & Spa

One of Laire Robinson’s favourite pastimes these days is grooming his young daughter to become an outstanding Jamaican chef. For him, this is the continuation of a love affair that started over 25 years ago in his mother’s kitchen, where he prepared his first meal — boiled bananas and salt fish. While in third form at Oracabessa High in St Mary, an encounter with a chef at his school’s Career Day became a pivotal turning point for him. During his final year, he spent three weeks training at a popular St Mary hotel on the school’s job experience programme and eager to learn more, he continued training at the hotel on the weekends after the programme ended. “I spent the week focusing on schoolwork and my weekends honing my skills in the hotel’s kitchen,” he shares with Thursday Food.

His mother later penned a personal letter to Sandals Chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, asking that he allow Laire to work as a trainee at the then Sandals Dunn’s River after graduating from Oracabessa High. “I started out in the pastry shop at Sandals Dunn’s River straight out of high school,” Robinson shared. He quickly proved himself and moved up the ranks as Cook II, but then decided to broaden his knowledge with a transfer from pastry to the range. Realising that he needed formal training, Robinson back-pedalled in 1995 and enrolled at the Runaway HEART Academy in the Commis Chef Programme which lasted for a year. On his return to the Sandals Group, he was quickly promoted to supervisor and became the resort’s supervisor of the year in 1997. Promotions to junior sous-chef and sous-chef were soon to follow. In 2000, his passion for the kitchen and search for a new experience landed him in Keenebunk Port, Maine, in the United States where he worked for seven years at the Barn Inn — a 5-diamond, relis gourmet restaurant — and the Pentegoet Inn Restaurant. He returned home in 2008 to rejoin the Sandals Group as executive sous-chef at Sandals Dunn’s River, and was later transferred to his current position at Sandals Whitehouse, where he tells Thursday Food that “it’s important to be self-motivated and think outside the box”.