Thursday Food checked into the ultra all-inclusive Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort last week for the prestigious World Travel Awards (WTA), hailed as the Oscars of the travel industry. As dinner for the event attracted tourism’s bigwigs from within the Caribbean, South America and North America, the resort’s executive chef, Scotsman Colin Watson made the strategic decision to showcase the range of continental cuisine served at several of the luxe property’s 16 restaurants. Escargot represented the French palate, dishes fused with avocado and mango shone the spotlight on the Caribbean, and green pea risotto provided a touch of Italy. How did a Scottish chef find his way into Beaches’ kitchen?

“Well, the weather in Scotland is wet and I came looking for the sun and the sea, it’s as easy as that,” the executive chef, who has been at the hotel for the past four years, tells us. The experience, Watson says, has been nothing short of fantastic. The blue-eyed, gregarious chef who worked on a high-end boutique cruise ship prior to landing his job at Beaches is upbeat about his current posting. “We have a lot of different cultures and nationalities here. We have 1,400 staff on property and about 44 different nationalities including locals, Haitians, Jamaicans, people from the Dominican Republic, English, Americans, French and Italians working on the resort. The mix in culture helps us to develop.”

Thursday Food shares in-the-kitchen snapshots from Watson and his team’s culinary masterwork for last Friday’s WTA dinner. (Photos: Joseph Wellington)