Fay­ola K J Fras­er

From the mo­ment she could reach the kitchen counter, Chan­tal Boynes was drawn to the dance of flavours and aro­mas at her grand­moth­er’s stove. Her grand­moth­er, a cater­er and pro­fes­sion­al­ly trained chef, wel­comed her grand­daugh­ter in­to the kitchen, teach­ing her the art of cook­ing with pa­tience and love. It wasn’t long be­fore cook­ing be­came sec­ond na­ture. At just ten years old, Chan­tal pre­pared her first full meal—cur­ry chick­en and rice—com­plete­ly on her own.

Scram­bling to fin­ish be­fore her moth­er in­ter­vened, she con­fi­dent­ly told her moth­er to “go up­stairs,” de­ter­mined to com­plete the meal. The re­sult? A per­fect­ly sea­soned, de­li­cious chick­en that earned her moth­er’s praise—and sparked the be­gin­ning of a life­long pas­sion.

While cook­ing was her first love, art be­came Chan­tal’s pri­ma­ry path for much of her young adult­hood, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing her first ca­reer. She pur­sued her artis­tic am­bi­tions all the way to Aus­tralia, at­tend­ing art school at La Trobe Col­lege of Art and De­sign.

Up­on grad­u­at­ing in 2020, she launched the Boynes Artist Award, an in­ter­na­tion­al plat­form ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing and pro­mot­ing artists world­wide. As founder and di­rec­tor, Chan­tal built part­ner­ships with gal­leries and res­i­den­cies across Eu­rope, help­ing nur­ture cre­ative tal­ent glob­al­ly. The ex­pe­ri­ence al­lowed her to trav­el ex­ten­sive­ly—from Aus­tralia to Por­tu­gal to Asia—ab­sorb­ing cul­tures and cuisines that would one day find their way back in­to her kitchen.

These trav­els be­came an ed­u­ca­tion un­like any for­mal culi­nary train­ing. Chan­tal learned from street ven­dors, home cooks, and el­ders car­ry­ing gen­er­a­tions of culi­nary wis­dom. One trea­sured mem­o­ry took place on a nar­row street in Bangkok, where she en­coun­tered an el­der­ly woman pound­ing in­gre­di­ents in a wood­en bowl. When Chan­tal asked what she was mak­ing, the woman smiled and said, “pa­paya sal­ad.” In­trigued, Chan­tal stayed and learned to pre­pare the dish right there on the side­walk.

“It was one of the most de­li­cious things I’ve ever eat­en,” she re­calls with a grin, “and that recipe re­mains my pa­paya sal­ad to­day.”

Al­though she nev­er at­tend­ed culi­nary school, Chan­tal’s train­ing was ground­ed in hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence and in­her­it­ed skill. Her grand­par­ents’ dis­ci­plined, pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach in­stilled a re­spect for tech­nique and tra­di­tion. Over the years, she re­fined her style through cu­rios­i­ty and ex­per­i­men­ta­tion, blend­ing artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty with a chef’s in­tu­ition.

“I get this gid­dy, but­ter­fly feel­ing when I watch peo­ple eat my food,” she says. “It’s like watch­ing some­one ex­pe­ri­ence art you’ve cre­at­ed, and I love see­ing them en­joy it.”

At 28, life pre­sent­ed Chan­tal with both deep grief and tran­si­tion. On June 13, she lost her moth­er—her “best friend, biggest sup­port­er, and kitchen com­pan­ion.” The two had of­ten dis­cussed open­ing a food busi­ness to­geth­er.

“A few weeks af­ter she passed,” Chan­tal re­flects, “the on­ly thing that kept me afloat was cook­ing.” It be­came her cop­ing mech­a­nism and a way to con­nect to her moth­er’s mem­o­ry through the fa­mil­iar act of prepar­ing meals.

Fol­low­ing her moth­er’s pass­ing, Chan­tal de­cid­ed to ho­n­our her mem­o­ry and fi­nal­ly pur­sue cook­ing as a ca­reer, thrilling those clos­est to her. Friends and fam­i­ly en­cour­aged her to share her tal­ent be­yond her home kitchen. She earned her food badge, of­fi­cial­ly step­ping in­to the culi­nary world, and launched Chef Chan­tal’s Ta­ble. Though she had launched and man­aged a busi­ness be­fore in the art world, this time felt dif­fer­ent—deeply per­son­al.

“The hard­est part wasn’t start­ing a busi­ness,” she ad­mits. “It was do­ing the things I used to do with­out my mom by my side. Some­times I look at the spot where she would nor­mal­ly be, and it slows me down. It’s like a blow to my chest.”

Chan­tal’s cui­sine to­day re­flects both her trav­els and her roots. She has a deep af­fec­tion for Asian fla­vors, par­tic­u­lar­ly Ko­re­an and Chi­nese dish­es. Af­ter spend­ing six months in Ko­rea, Viet­nam, Thai­land, and Malaysia, she learned to make a va­ri­ety of dish­es, her favourite be­ing tra­di­tion­al kim­chi us­ing na­pa cab­bage and an­cient fer­ment­ing tech­niques. She still keeps “two buck­ets of kim­chi” in her fridge for per­son­al use. She de­lights in craft­ing dumplings, won­tons, and dim sum, each a trib­ute to the teach­ers she met along her jour­ney. Yet her all-time favourite dish re­mains a Can­tonese roast­ed goose over rice she had in Hong Kong—a fla­vor she has been chas­ing ever since.

Cur­rent­ly, Chan­tal is carv­ing her niche in the lo­cal food scene, of­fer­ing prepack­aged lunch­es a few days a week and grad­u­al­ly ex­pand­ing in­to cor­po­rate cater­ing. Her phi­los­o­phy is sim­ple: qual­i­ty over quan­ti­ty.

“My grand­par­ents in­stilled that in me,” she ex­plains. “A small menu that you do re­al­ly well is bet­ter than a big one that’s mediocre.” Her dish­es are craft­ed with care, em­pha­siz­ing fresh in­gre­di­ents, bal­anced flavours, and au­then­tic­i­ty. She al­so en­joys cater­ing in­ti­mate gath­er­ings, where she can in­ter­act di­rect­ly with guests and wit­ness their re­ac­tions. She is al­most fa­mous with­in her fam­i­ly for ex­pert­ly mixed cock­tails, es­pe­cial­ly her sig­na­ture rum punch, fol­low­ing her moth­er’s tra­di­tion of us­ing the fresh­est in­gre­di­ents.

Though she is on­ly be­gin­ning this new chap­ter, Chan­tal ap­proach­es it with hu­mil­i­ty and joy.

“I’m still fig­ur­ing my­self out,” she says. “But I know that when peo­ple taste my food and smile, I’m ex­act­ly where I’m meant to be.”

Cook­ing has be­come both her ca­reer and her con­nec­tion to those she loves—a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween mem­o­ry and flavour, loss and cre­ation. With every dish she cre­ates, she con­tin­ues to ho­n­our the women who first brought her in­to the kitchen, turn­ing their lessons in­to her lega­cy.