Call him rad­i­cal, call him cre­ative or just plain dif­fer­ent. What­ev­er you de­cide, 38-year-old chef Xex­on Thomas prefers to let his culi­nary cre­ations do all the talk­ing. There is a lan­guage to food, the for­mer Fa­ti­ma Col­lege stu­dent be­lieves, and he re­cent­ly shared this be­lief with the Sun­day Guardian in the form of an ex­quis­ite three-course meal, ti­tled Love, Sus­tain and In­spire Your­self, at his Brown Cow restau­rant, sit­u­at­ed in Crown Point, To­ba­go.

Our vis­it to Brown Cow was cour­tesy the Leve-Glob­al Me­dia Fa­mil­iari­sa­tion Tour, an ini­tia­tive of the Tourism In­tel­li­gence Agency, un­der the stew­ard­ship of its founder Dr Au­liana Poon. The Sun­day Guardian got a chance to chat with the busy chef who shared with us his jour­ney of be­com­ing a “con­scious” chef.

Q: When and how did you be­come a chef?

A: It be­gan while walk­ing down Fred­er­ick Street as a med­ical in­sur­ance agent. I came across a ‘Help Want­ed’ sign at the en­trance of what was to be the Club de Ve­gas Casi­no, the par­ent com­pa­ny of the then soon to be opened Laugh­ing Bud­dha Restau­rant, Trinidad’s first au­then­tic Japan­ese fine din­ing restau­rant. I left sell­ing in­sur­ance and jumped in­to the Japan­ese fry­ing pan, my first love.

Did you even­tu­al­ly of­fi­cial­ly study culi­nary arts?

Yes, at TTHTI in Ch­aguara­mas. I have a diplo­ma in culi­nary arts.

What’s your style in cui­sine and do your meals tell a sto­ry? If so, what ex­act­ly do they say?

My style of cui­sine is callaloo in­ter­na­tion­al. I’m a Trin­bag­on­ian and we are beau­ti­ful and di­verse, full of love, flavour and colour. Our cul­ture speaks for it­self. I ap­pre­ci­ate my own and be­lieve in sup­port­ing our own, all I do is fuse in­ter­na­tion­al con­cepts and ideas with our own cuisines and a dash of bac­cha­nal.

How long has the Brown Cow ex­ist­ed and what’s the sto­ry be­hind its name?

Brown Cow Restau­rant has been in op­er­a­tion since No­vem­ber 30, 2018. The name was lit­er­al­ly de­rived from a re­la­tion­ship be­tween a ba­by brown cow and a full grown pit­bull. They lived to­geth­er at an emp­ty lot across the road from a restau­rant where I worked as the head chef. I ob­served them every day eat­ing, walk­ing and sleep­ing to­geth­er. I held on to that name for the day I opened my own restau­rant.

What dis­tin­guish­es Chef Xenon from oth­er chefs?

As a chef I be­lieve not com­pro­mis­ing at­ti­tude, dis­ci­pline and con­sis­ten­cy set one apart, the at­ti­tude is the pre­mier.

You were the fea­tured chef at this year’s Leve. How was that ex­pe­ri­ence and how do you think it has helped your busi­ness?

This was an ex­trav­a­gant ex­pe­ri­ence which opened Brown Cow Restau­rant and my­self up to a much wider mar­ket with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go and po­ten­tial­ly much fur­ther than our shores.

Why choose To­ba­go for your first restau­rant? Do you have plans for open­ing a Brown Cow in Trinidad?

I de­cid­ed to open Brown Cow Restau­rant in To­ba­go be­cause I saw that there was an op­por­tu­ni­ty... a need. I had an out­lier and the time was nigh. Open­ing an­oth­er branch in Trinidad will be a dream come true, but noth­ing is be­fore it’s time.

You’re very close to na­ture and the restau­rants in­te­ri­or de­sign speaks of this. How do you mar­ry your culi­nary skill with preser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment?

Cur­rent­ly, even at the back of Brown Cow Restau­rant where the team mem­bers some­times re­lax and eat we keep a lit­tle space in pris­tine look­ing con­di­tion, grow­ing some of our own herbs that are used for ser­vice. We sup­port lo­cal farm­ers and we use biodegrad­able take away con­tain­ers.

What are your fu­ture plans for the Brown Cow?

We at Brown Cow Restau­rant are a part of a greater whole that is striv­ing to fur­ther the de­vel­op­ment of the tourism brand in our twin is­land re­pub­lic. To­geth­er we as­pire; To­geth­er we achieve.