CARISA LEE

Arthur Patrick, 29, is a To­bag­on­ian chef whose lo­cal flavoured meals have been siz­zling among sev­er­al celebri­ties in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. But be­fore cook­ing for some of the most pop­u­lar peo­ple in the world this young chef’s ca­reer start­ed at the To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute.

“I re­alised that if I stayed here as a chef I would be stunt­ing my growth,” he said.

“I de­cid­ed to go to the US and at­tend John­son and Wales Uni­ver­si­ty,” he con­tin­ued.

Since then, Patrick has worked with singers such as Neyo, Fan­ta­sia and An­tho­ny Hamil­ton and was al­so the per­son­al chef for Elvis Dumervil of the Bal­ti­more Ravens.

But there are not the on­ly celebri­ties he has worked with, more re­cent­ly this To­ba­go tal­ent pre­pared meals for Christo­pher Bridges al­so known as Lu­dacris as he vis­it­ed T&T for Car­ni­val.

“A fam­i­ly friend who lives in the states rec­om­mend­ed me for the job,” Patrick said.

“They want­ed a more per­son­alised ex­pe­ri­ence for him,” he con­tin­ued.

Lu­dacris is on a Ke­to­genic di­et which is a very low-carb, high-fat di­et but even with that meal plan, the lo­cal chef added some T&T flavour.

“I al­ways try to im­ple­ment our lo­cal flavours and in­gre­di­ents in­to my menus,” He said.

“He loved sweet pota­toes so I did things with sweet pota­toes, av­o­ca­do, plan­tain,” he con­tin­ued.

Patrick pre­pared three meals for the act the fool rap­per dai­ly and even though he didn’t par­take in our dou­bles or oil down the Fast and Fu­ri­ous ac­tor did cheat his di­et on car­ni­val Sat­ur­day.

“About 12 mid­night he mes­saged me and told me that Sun­day is my cheat day and he want­ed some­thing dif­fer­ent, “he said.

“So I had to think out­side the box to pro­duce a menu for him that day,“ Patrick con­tin­ued.

The 29-year-old chef said Lu­dacris loved T&T’s food and how friend­ly our peo­ple are but had some ques­tions about our par­ty cul­ture. He said the rap­per was im­pressed by our sta­mi­na.

“How do y’all par­ty for so long, cel­e­brate for so long?” he asked.

“Lu­dacris said that’s crazy,” he con­tin­ued.

And while cook­ing for celebri­ties is a big ac­com­plish­ment for any chef, Patrick has an­oth­er dream he wants to ac­com­plish. He has plans of open­ing his own restau­rant.

“I am cur­rent­ly in the act of do­ing that, so hope­ful­ly be­fore the year is out,” he said.

He, how­ev­er, did not dis­close the lo­ca­tion.

Patrick told Guardian Me­dia that he will con­tin­ue be­ing a per­son­al chef and of­fer his culi­nary knowl­edge to up­com­ing chefs.