Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

In just a few hours, every­thing could change for Chef Bernadette Burke.

The lo­cal chef and own­er of the fu­sion busi­ness Cousoumeh is al­so a se­mi-fi­nal­ist in the Fa­vorite Chef Com­pe­ti­tion 2025. Should Burke go on to win, she would be the first Trinida­di­an na­tion­al to take the ti­tle.

“I want to see our na­tion­al colours on that Food Net­work kitchen, and to let the world know about our bold flavours and Trin­bag­on­ian cui­sine,” Burke re­vealed.

The Fa­vorite Chef com­pe­ti­tion is an an­nu­al culi­nary con­test pre­sent­ed by celebri­ty chef Car­la Hall.

The win­ner of the 2025 Fa­vorite Chef com­pe­ti­tion will re­ceive a prize pack­age that in­cludes: a $25,000 cash hon­o­rar­i­um, an ex­clu­sive cook­ing ex­pe­ri­ence with Car­la Hall, and a two-page ad­ver­to­r­i­al fea­ture in Taste of Home mag­a­zine.

The com­pe­ti­tion is based on pop­u­lar­i­ty vot­ing, and Burke is cur­rent­ly in sec­ond place on the Fa­vorite Chef web­site.

Burke ex­pressed con­fi­dence that she’ll win and plans to trav­el to the U.S. to bring a taste of T&T’s cul­tur­al fu­sion.

One such flavour is some­thing she calls “cur­ry­lau.”​​​

“Cur­ry­lau is my sig­na­ture dish... I have great re­spect for pelau, so I've in­cor­po­rat­ed the East In­di­an as­pect with my blend of cur­ries,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

She ex­plains that it’s been a fam­i­ly recipe for 35 years. Her pas­sion for cook­ing was in­her­it­ed from her moth­er, Rosi­ta Com­lan-Burke, al­so known as Madam Burke.

“My mom was a chef; she owned a restau­rant called Flam­ing Star. She was trained pro­fes­sion­al­ly as an Asian chef. So, from the age of nine, she had me un­der her armpit in the kitchen, teach­ing me cut­ting skills and spices. That’s the lega­cy she left with me,” she rem­i­nisced.

Al­though Burke ini­tial­ly pur­sued a ca­reer in bank­ing, she al­ways felt drawn back to the kitchen.

“I went in­to bank­ing and fi­nance, but I al­ways want­ed to re­vert to cook­ing in my lat­er years. In 2014, I went to To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty & Tourism In­sti­tute (TTH­TA). There I stud­ied pas­try lam­i­na­tion and bread mak­ing,” she said.

From there, she launched a tea shop—La Pe­tite Fleur Teashop—in 2018. How­ev­er, dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, she closed it. In 2022, she re­brand­ed as Cousoumeh, a pop-up and on­line busi­ness.

She shared that it was al­ways part of her dream to be on the Food Net­work, and an an­swer to her prayers came when a friend told her about the com­pe­ti­tion.

“I de­cid­ed to sign up for it, and I just for­got about it, and then some weeks lat­er I got a let­ter that I was ac­cept­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion,” she added.

Burke em­pha­sizes her de­sire to show­case T&T’s culi­nary ex­cel­lence to the world.

“I am of the firm be­lief, and I will go down fight­ing for this: we have some of the best foods in the world. Our flavours, our di­ver­si­ty, our mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety, and our mix of flavours, and menus and recipes and spices—we have some of the best tast­ing foods in the world... I re­al­ly want T&T to get a lit­tle fur­ther ex­po­sure in food tourism.”

Burke is al­so con­tend­ing for the “Chef’s Picks” cat­e­go­ry.

Vot­ing for the se­mi-fi­nals clos­es on Thurs­day, 22nd May at 10 PM. The fi­nals will then be­gin, with an­oth­er round of vot­ing run­ning un­til Thurs­day, 5th June. The win­ner will be an­nounced on Thurs­day, 3rd Ju­ly 2025.

In­for­ma­tion on how to vote can be found on Burke’s so­cial me­dia pages at Cousoumeh w Chef Bernadette.