The Taste of the Caribbean is a culinary competition organized by the Caribbean Culinary Federation under the umbrella of the Caribbean Hotel Association.
The goal of the competition is to promote and document the traditional recipes full of beautiful Caribbean flavors and elevate them into a more contemporary, restaurant-presentable cuisine.
I got involved in this competition as a young chef while living in Bonaire in 1997. We managed to put a team together, I was bombarded to be the captain, and we travelled to Puerto Rico to compete against teams from many other Caribbean islands.
Since I moved jobs and islands, I came back again in 1999 with Team Curaçao.
The competition experience—and most of all the camaraderie among the young culinarians—motivated me to continue on this path after I landed in Belize.
Together with some other people I was the brainchild of the first ever “Taste of Belize” culinary competition in 2001. Although the competition has missed a few years because of budgetary restrictions (and a little thing called Covid), it is still the annual culinary highlight for many young chefs who come out to measure their skills against other, mostly young, culinarians.
We had our 2025 competition in July, and the winners of each category were asked to form the Belize Culinary Team 2025.
I had the honour to be the team captain and one of the mentors for this very young team, and we put them through a series of pretty intense training sessions in order to hone their knives and skills.
So in November we took off to Barbados—confident, but also with high anxiety.
There were competitions for junior chefs, professional chefs, pastry chefs, and bartenders. Belize had by far the youngest team in the competition. We did very well and came home with 2 bronze and 2 silver medals. A great achievement for these young people who had never competed internationally, and most of whom had never travelled abroad or even been on an airplane.
Coming home with medals is great, but seeing these youngsters mingling with people from all over the Caribbean, learning from each other, networking, and making friendships that will probably last a lifetime—that is the real achievement of these missions.
It makes me proud to be part of these journeys. It makes me proud to see many of the members of Team Belize from prior years operating successful businesses all over the country. And although my heart is in Belize, it also made me proud to see Team Bonaire take home all the gold medals in this year’s competition—remember, that is a team I started about 30 years ago.
Of course, I want Belize to reach that level as well. With some goodwill, dedication, and sponsorship, that surely can be achieved.
Although it is always great to travel and gain new experiences, it’s even better to come home to Belize. There is nothing quite like walking back into my hotel, stepping into my kitchen, and getting back to work. That feeling of returning to familiar faces, familiar flavors, and the place I’ve called home for so many years—it’s something no medal or trip can replace
Happy cooking
