Kitchen Kings

“One thing that always surprises me about the hospitality industry, is the boys who avoid it. Our young men who don’t view this space as one they can grow from or create a future in, partly attributed to the deeply rooted conception that cooking is a feminine trait – And so what? As a boy my love of food evolved watching my mother cook in the kitchen for hours on end to feed a large family with whatever she had available at the time, using recipes she learnt as a girl watching her own mother. Resourceful and skilled she glided across the floor from station to station, a proficiency many restaurants are yet to master. Understanding the hospitality industry and the glory that comes along with it, is first acknowledging the strong matriarchs in our community who paved the way for us to use, teach and innovate traditional recipes and cooking techniques passed down to them by their own mothers and their mothers before them.

A Kitchen King acknowledges and respects the original masters of our trade and understands that the conception which drives so many of them away, should be our source of strength and inspiration. The ever-changing hospitality world is a profession of resilience and innovation, a trade that can never be perfected without passion and dedication to the Culinary arts. Its early mornings, late nights back breaking hours and unfaltering commitment, all things that make or break a Kitchen King.”