Creating opportunities for Bermudians to learn

Nils Noren said Marcus Samuelsson worked with Karla Lacey and the Bermuda Hospitality Institute to help keep the cream of the crop from Bermuda College. 

“Almost all of our cooks are recent graduates from Bermuda College and we have a few people from New York with us. All of our servers are right out of college as well — either home from the summer or from Bermuda College.

“It is very important for us to be part of the community. We don’t want to come in and say ‘Here’s our New York restaurant’. 

“We want to find local talent. Our hope is that we can work with them and when we do the permanent restaurant next year, we can bring a lot of them back and be part of our family for a very long time, whether that be here or one of our restaurants in Sweden, Norway or New York.”

Mr Noren said there is nothing better than to work with local talent and then see them grow and become successful chefs or restaurateurs on their own. 

“It is the most rewarding thing there is. Nothing means more than that. This might sound like a cliché, but it really is not. For us, it is more important to us that people who work for us get to the next stage. We have always had that goal. There have been a lot of cooks who have worked for us that are now running their own restaurants. That’s what makes us go to work every day.

Eron Woods said this is an opportunity he could not miss out on.

“Chef Nils and the team he brought over are excellent. They have trained me well. I’m ready to get busy and get some plates out and make everyone happy. This is such a good experience because they are such humble people even though they are so well-known internationally. They are just like everyone else.”