Imag­ine a restau­rant where you can cook live for your friends with­out the both­er of hav­ing to clean up af­ter.This is the kind of in­ter­ac­tive cook­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that head chef Ash­ton Lutch­man is pro­mot­ing at 17 Park Av­enue, which he re­cent­ly opened on Park Street, Port-of-Spain.

Lutch­man, a for­mer chef at the Trinidad Hilton, al­so has a wealth of in­ter­na­tion­al cook­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, hav­ing worked in the US and the UK be­fore re­turn­ing home in 1998.He was trained at the T&T Hos­pi­tal­i­ty In­sti­tute and John Don­ald­son and San Fer­nan­do Tech­ni­cal In­sti­tutes. He al­so trained ad­di­tion­al­ly in New­cas­tle, Eng­land, in food and bev­er­age man­age­ment.

Af­ter re­turn­ing home, Lutch­man be­came food and bev­er­age man­ag­er at Grafton and Le Grand Cour­land Re­sort in To­ba­go. He left Grafton to open his own restau­rants in To­ba­go: Cafe Callaloo, Co­coa, Chul­ha (In­di­an) and Cafe Melange.

17 Park Av­enue, which is lo­cat­ed op­po­site Vic­to­ria Square, not on­ly of­fers fine din­ing but is pro­mot­ing the in­ter­ac­tive cook­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. This is for pa­trons who want a close up view of the chef cook­ing their meals or for com­pa­nies who want pro­mote team morale by get­ting their em­ploy­ees to cook to­geth­er.

For her birth­day, busi­ness­woman Michelle Ram­jat­tan cooked for her fam­i­ly at the 17 Park Av­enue kitchen. This was a spe­cial treat for her fa­ther Subesh Ram­jat­tan, founder of San­gre Grande-based chil­dren's home Bridge of Hope, and CEO of the de­part­ment chain House of Mar­ket­ing.