Putting Down Roots
Half the battle in life is planting your flag. When you commit to a vivacious paradise like Barbados, you can unpack your bags and donate the bags to charity. Our featured chefs have most certainly arrived in Barbados and are putting down roots in the place they know best – the kitchen. Both of them have enviable chops gained from old-school culinary tutelage and toil in their native UK. And both deftly explore the cross-currents of influences that define Barbados. Yet they focus on simplicity and purity by foregrounding elemental flavours. That's the essence of home cooking, no matter where you land.
— Photography Kenneth Theysen
Food was a massive part of Sophie Michell’s upbringing. She recalls her mother preparing savoury dishes and her grandmother’s outrageous cakes—sometimes with green and blue marbled batter.
Early on, cooking became an escape for Michell. A kind of satisfying, therapeutic activity. Her passion for cooking, savouring, and reading cookbooks led Michell to dabble in the restaurant industry. And she hasn’t left since. She trained at Butlers Wharf Chef School and by age 19, was nominated “Young Chef of the Year” by the Craft Guild of Chefs. Now with a wealth of experience from working in kitchens across the United Kingdom, Michell is a best-selling author, food writer, and revered chef.
Birth place: Somerset.
Birth country: United Kingdom.
Favourite Barbadian dish: Pudding and souse with lots of hot sauce.
Favourite drink: Rum, of course.
Favourite food trend: Farm to table.
Favourite song to cook to: Jamming by Bob Marley.
Best meal of your life: SO many! Anything simple, grilled seafood on the beach, roast lunch at home.
Favourite local ingredient: Breadfruit, hands down the best.
A recipe your mother still makes for you today: Roast chicken and gravy.
On a deserted island, which 3 ingredients would you bring? Extra-virgin olive oil, soy sauce and lime.
Your comfort food: Roast chicken with all the trimmings.
What would your last meal be? Seafood platter, full of oysters, sea urchins, langoustines, lobsters etc., with Montrachet wine and vintage champagne followed by a perfect crème brûlée to finish.
Matt Worswick says he’s “a bit of a one-trick pony”. He will always be around food (whether he’s cooking it or not) because it’s what he knows and loves—and it’s been that way since he was 18 years old.
Worswick started in the industry as an Apprentice Chef and steadily moved his way up the ranks across the United Kingdom to Head Chef. He’s earned a Michelin star twice at the Latymer Restaurant and Glenapp Castle respectively. Worswick hails most recently from a position as Executive Head Chef at Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill inside the Savoy Hotel.
Birth place: Liverpool.
Birth country: United Kingdom.
Favourite Barbadian dish: Fish cutter.
Favourite drink: Coffee.
Favourite food trend: The classics, never fashionable, but always relevant.
Favourite song to cook to: Anything by Sam Cooke.
Best meal of your life: Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms, Mid Wales UK.
Favourite local ingredient: Bajan-prepared hot sauce and raw ackee fruit.
A recipe your mother still makes for you today: Pan of scouse (stew typically made from chunks of meat, usually beef or lamb, with potatoes, carrots and onions).
On a deserted island, which 3 ingredients would you bring? Very boring but universal: potatoes, onions and butter.
Your comfort food: Pasta or sushi.
What would your last meal be? Starter: whole lobe of foie gras with apples and Calvados. Main: seafood platter, lots of Cornish crab, oysters etc., French cheese platter, malt loaf. Dessert: raspberry cheesecake.
