Jhanelle Mair – From bottle-washer to head cook

WHILE many people still hold the view that a woman’s place is in the kitchen, it is not very often that you will find one being the head chef in a growing franchise. But having been stirring the pot since she was tall enough to see inside it, Jhanelle Mair has quickly climbed the ladder in the restaurant industry to become the senior sous chef at Usain Bolt’s Tracks & Records restaurant. What’s even more surprising is to find out that she just turned 26 last month.

Mair told All Woman over lunch at the Market Place eatery last week that she had to work twice as hard to earn her stripes, not just because she was fresh out of college when she landed her first senior position, but also because she is a woman.

“It’s wonderful to be a woman, but it’s not easy. I need to be twice as good as a man to get the same amount of respect,” she said. “I have to be absolutely firm in my disposition when dealing with everyone as a woman. I see differences all the time in how team members, both male and female, respond to a male chef as opposed to a female chef. If you are not adamant about certain things, if you are not absolutely confident and resolved in your position and what you want to bring across, you will be completely disregarded.”

Despite the stereotypes, however, Mair believes that her rise from bottle-washer to head cook was a charmed one, as not many persons are met with the opportunities that greeted her when she knocked on the kitchen door.

“I didn’t even do food and nutrition in school. For six months I would say I wanted to be a teacher, and for another six months I’d say I wanted to be a lawyer,” she remembered. “I wanted to do something that would allow me to dress up very cute and go to work. I ended up doing the arts.”

Even though she was yet to be convinced that she was to become a chef, Mair confessed that food had always been a big part of her family. Her mom, who was a garde manger chef, allowed her to attend to the stove as soon as she was tall enough to reach the stove top on her own (and she was a tall child), and she grew up with a passion for food, and even a dream of owning a restaurant when she retires from her ‘pretty job’.

“My first big meal on my own was curry chicken and white rice,” she grinned proudly. “I was maybe nine years old when I did that, but it came out so good! I’ve always been experimenting with food.”

But still she wasn’t a believer in her culinary talents. It wasn’t until she was in sixth form, while watching a sitcom at home one day that Mair had “an epiphany”, as she described it.

“I just felt this strong pain in my heart and just knew that this was it, this is what I was supposed to be doing,” she recalled. “But there wasn’t a lot of support from my family, which was very disheartening. They saw cooking as a job and not a career.”

Though she had a lot of fears initially, Mair set out to prove her family wrong when she left home in Westmoreland to pursue a bachelor of science in culinary arts and management at the University of Technology. She worked full time at TGI Friday’s while she attended school full time as well.

“I was still able to do my job very well and focus on school. It was stressful but I always believe that whenever there is a rough patch, it is going to end eventually. That was very comforting to me.”

Close to her graduation, Mair was asked to become a supervisor at A-bar Restaurant and Lounge, where she was employed for some time before.

“I did that for about three months, and then the head chef here (Tracks & Records) reached out to me to come on as the junior sous chef. I have to give him thanks for that, because I was fresh out of college and he gave me the opportunity. But he really took me under his wings, he gave me the foundation I needed to survive and excel here, and I just took that, along with all my traits, and made it my own.”

Little did Mair know at the time, though, that her mentor was going to leave the restaurant in her hands just a few months after hiring her.

“When he left last December there was a lot of nervous energy here in terms of what was going to happen, as it was right before the busy Christmas week,” she recounted. “There were a lot of doubts. Even I was nervous, but I had the support of the team, which was good, so I kept the nerves to myself. I thought that I didn’t know 100 per cent of what I was doing, but I was going to pretend that I knew a good 70, and I was just going to make it happen. We had a very good Christmas and I definitely proved myself in that period, and it’s after that period that I was officially appointed.”

Now settled in her role, Mair was instrumental in the training of staff at the Montego Bay Tracks & Records, which was opened earlier this year. She also travelled to London in September to train the staff there before the opening of another Tracks & Records franchise.

“I’m fortunate to be in the company now, at a time when we are expanding and looking to other territories,” she mused. “My concern is always the food. In being a franchise, the taste has to be consistent right across — the service, the quality of the drinks, the décor. It doesn’t sit well with me when a customer says they had something at another branch and it tasted better.”

Just live life

“My motto is just to live life. I strongly believe in doing what makes you happy and doing what you want to do, as long as it’s not hurting anybody,” she said simply. “Outside of work, I’m pretty chill. I like to spend a lot of time at home watching Netflix. I also love to go out and eat. Because despite what people think, chefs don’t like to cook when they are at home, and there is a certain taste that comes from restaurant food that you can’t get from home. I think it’s the pots!”

Though she didn’t land in a field that allows her to dress up as she likes for work, Mair takes great pride in ensuring that she looks good in the kitchen.

“When I’m in the kitchen I try to be very sharp,” she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “My jacket and pants are pressed every day and my shoes are clean. If I’m wearing a blue jacket I like to have on a blue pair of socks. I enjoy looking very clean, especially when I’m going to speak to customers, and also because I’m a leader who leads by example.”

With just a few years’ experience so far, Mair yearns to learn and to do much more.

“I don’t see my life slowing down. I see myself taking on more responsibilities. If I leave Tracks now, I’d have to be going into a bigger swimming pool. It’s always about learning, like doing a little bit of travelling so I can learn what the world is out there doing, and being exposed to something besides onion, escallion and thyme,” she laughed.