Worldy chef returns to her island home

FRIDAY, NOV. 1: She’s served as a private chef to Royalty, A-list celebrities and the lion’s share of the Forbes Rich List but her feet remain planted firmly in the soil.

Local Sam Crew has worked in some of the most exclusive kitchens in 12 countries spanning three continents and has now returned to her beloved island to serve us up the fruits of her labours.

Many in her position might be tempted to boast about rubbing shoulders with this celebrity or that billionaire, but she tells us: “For me there is no them and us. You take people on face value and as a private chef you are in someone’s household and it is obscenely intimate — it’s really about cultivating a trust and intimacy.”

Asked about her fondest memories she recalled the joy she received from helping to improve the quality of food at an independent  school in Clapham, South London. She likened it to UK celebrity chef Jamie Oliver who led a campaign to highlight and improve the dire state of school dinners in Britain.

“I really enjoyed it,” she smiled.

“The chef must have been having a breakdown because he was buying in frozen mashed potatoes and the most awful convenience foods.

“I ordered fresh ingredients for these 150 adorable children. It was such a Jamie Oliver success that I had the Head Mistress coming into the kitchen wanting to chop up vegetables and wash the dishes.”

Employed by Rosa’s Cantina and Chopsticks restaurants to develop their catering division, Crew is available for in-house private catering services to meet the needs of any relatively intimate occasion from children’s birthday parties to corporate AGMs. She is also providing drop off meals and at home cooking lessons. Eleven-year-old Gabriel Jones is one of her first students and Crew has so far taught him the basics of an egg with three sauces, a soufflé recipe, a fish dish, and a vegetable tart .

Having worked in some of the top food regions in the world, her culinary repertoire is extensive. Since her first cooking job in the French Alps in 2002, she has had the opportunity to work with the best produce from the likes of the Douro Valley in Portugal, Naples in Italy, Provence and Charentes in France, Napa in California, the Scottish Highlands and New South Wales in Australia to name a few.

“All of the places I have gone to work in have been fruit baskets of their regions or their countries — I’ve been in the heart of the food areas and there has been amazing produce wherever I have been.”

Crew plans to use the very best of Bermuda’s local produce in her work here. As a premise her produce is always responsibly sourced with an emphasis on the healthy.

“The level of diabetes on this island is shocking. I am client led but my premise is to use local, seasonal, fresh food that is healthy and clean.

“I use no preservatives additives. I’ve got this amazingly strong sense of smell — I am like a hound and I can smell them. I use food in its original form.

“There are a lot of dietary needs now, so many people are allergic to wheat. I do use vinegars and oils and dressings but everything I do myself.”

Traditional

Wherever Crew has cooked she has immersed herself in the traditional recipes and methods of that region but she also likes to keep her ideas fresh. One of her signatures is to take a classic dish and “turn it on its head”.

For example she has made a Caesar salad with guinea fowl and sardines, as the produce in the region lent itself well to it.

Here in Bermuda she might take Bermuda fish cakes and turn them in to Bermuda lobster cakes, she said.

As well as using fresh food from the island’s farms, in particular Wadson’s, and Windy Bank, she intends on growing her own produce on a plot at her home. She believes the island benefits from some high quality products and intends on using them to their full potential.

“We have great soil here. The golden beets are so yummy, I love local tomatoes and local tuna and local lobster. I’ve completely fallen in love with Bermuda avocado. Sweet potatoes too Bermuda is so good for root vegetables.”

Crew is not afraid to get her hands dirty and while she is in Bermuda hopes to learn fishing and butchery: “I’m a pretty sporty girl. I have done so much work in the hunting and fishing communities and I would really like to go out and hunt.

“I’d love to learn to cut meat properly and I like the process of how you hang meat.

“Almost every country in Europe has different ways to butcher and cure meats. I’m quite interested in smoke houses on the island too and food heritage interests me.”

Having lived in some of the most remote locations on earth Crew is used to having to be resourceful. And having worked with such exclusive clients as the Royal Family it would come as no surprise to her to be asked to whip up an 1840s French recipe at a day’s notice.

On the while her work might sound glamorous but she insists that it is a hard graft. She is used to working 17-hour days and is constantly on her feet. “It is not for the faint hearted,” she says knowingly.

“You have to be as tough as a boatload of nails.”

Her recent stint with Royalty lasted for three weeks in August earlier this year in the Scottish Highlands. “It was super fun,” she said. “It was only a matter of time because I have worked in their circles for seven years. They were looking for a cook and after looking at my resumé they took 15 minutes and booked me. Calibre wise — when I look at the Forbes Rich List or Sunday Times Rich List I can hand on heart say I have worked for 70 per cent of them.”

But regardless of her history of serving high-end clients, her business in Bermuda is not solely for the exclusive client — she can work with different price ranges. She intends, for the most part at least, to cater for small groups no larger than 60 and for as little as one. Her drop off meal service is aimed at providing healthy, ready cooked meals for the likes of time-starved execs and ‘can’t cook, won’t cooks’.  

Her services can double up — she can go into a home and cook a dinner for a group of friends and, at the same time, teach them how to cook it.

“In my work I have to speak to the client, cultivate the relationship, find out what they like and what their dietary limitations are. People have these beautiful kitchens in their homes and they don’t cook but they want to entertain at home.”

Two weeks in, Crew tells us that business is picking up quickly and “literally, as one door closes, the next one opens”.

She added: “There is a sympathy for what I am doing. I do put my heart, blood, sweat and tears into my ventures and I will make it work.”

To book Sam Crew contact her through: [email protected] or or call 533-2766.

She is also working with Rosa’s Cantina and Chopsticks restaurants.

For more information visit: www.bermudarestaurants.com