Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Cook­ing is more than just prepar­ing food—it’s sto­ry­telling, heal­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, and con­nec­tion served on a plate. In a bustling home that she has cre­at­ed, where the aro­ma of the kitchen min­gles with the vi­brant pres­ence of six chil­dren, chef Ar­i­anne Dy­er strikes a per­fect bal­ance in a world that many would call over­whelm­ing. A wife, moth­er, and a chef, Dy­er has called the kitchen home for as long as she can re­mem­ber, laugh­ing that her first word, point­ing at the TV screen, was “cook”.

Born and raised in the lush, ver­dant val­ley of Mara­cas, St Joseph, Dy­er grew up with food and cook­ing as faith­ful fix­tures in her life, as her grand­moth­er was a cater­er. A tele­vi­sion show—Great Chefs, Great Cities—ig­nit­ed her pas­sion for cook­ing, and she would watch it every evening, in­spired by the culi­nary cre­ations.

When Dy­er went to Bish­op Anstey High School, the seeds of her culi­nary cu­rios­i­ty grew deep­er. “I used to get to school ear­ly,” she re­mem­bers, “ and I would spend time in the school cafe­te­ria, watch­ing staff prep for the day.”

From these ear­ly mem­o­ries, Dy­er feels that al­though her stom­ach di­rect­ed her to food, it was nev­er just about eat­ing—food was ex­pres­sion, art, and in­deed, a call­ing.

As an on­ly child, Dy­er had the men­tal head­space to dream of her fu­ture from a young age. Every school es­say and every ca­reer day point­ed to­ward her sin­gu­lar am­bi­tion: be­com­ing a chef. Her pas­sion led to a half-schol­ar­ship to the es­teemed John­son & Wales Uni­ver­si­ty in the US, which her fam­i­ly could not af­ford. Un­de­terred, she en­rolled at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute, where she ex­celled—not just in culi­nary skills, but in un­der­stand­ing the broad­er ecosys­tem of hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

This was the be­gin­ning of a lay­ered ca­reer, one that would see her jour­ney­ing through front-of-house jobs, hos­pi­tal­i­ty roles and pri­vate cheff­ing.

At 20 years old, her jour­ney took a dif­fer­ent turn—mar­riage and a move to Mi­a­mi with her first child and her hus­band, who was from the US. In Mi­a­mi, Dy­er delved deep­er in­to the culi­nary world. For 18 months she im­mersed her­self in the lux­u­ry world of be­spoke meals as a pri­vate chef on South Beach. Yet, even in the heart of her dreams, she missed the hum of home. Trinidad was call­ing.

Back on home soil, she launched Grub Cul­ture in 2017, an all-ve­g­an com­pa­ny that quick­ly be­came a well-loved busi­ness in T&T. But the busi­ness’ ex­pan­sion came with grow­ing pains. “It grew big­ger than me,” Dy­er ad­mits, “and I didn’t have the busi­ness skills and en­tre­pre­neur­ial back­ground to sus­tain it.”

Then, Dy­er was al­so a new­ly mint­ed moth­er of two, and with the de­mands of moth­er­hood, she made the tough de­ci­sion to step back and close the busi­ness. “I was scared. I felt like I failed,” she added.

But that per­ceived fail­ure be­came her foun­da­tion, teach­ing her re­silience, self-worth, and the im­por­tance of be­ing an­chored in faith.

Now a moth­er of six, Dy­er jug­gles mul­ti­ple roles—pri­vate chef, cor­po­rate chef, and full-time wife and mom.

“Be­cause of those fail­ures, I’ve learnt what surf­ing the wave looks like,” she said. Dy­er has cooked through preg­nan­cies, chil­dren’s ill­ness­es, school runs, and even house­hold dis­as­ters. “There are weeks where every­thing flows … Then there’s the week where the nan­ny calls mid-in­ter­view, one child has a rash, and you re­alise you left the hose on and drained the wa­ter tanks,” she laughs.

Yet, she’s found grace in the chaos, learn­ing to be easy on her­self and “sur­ren­der” to the ex­pe­ri­ence of moth­er­hood along with pro­fes­sion­al life.

Her love for food re­mains un­wa­ver­ing. She speaks with rev­er­ence of her grand­moth­er in­tro­duc­ing her to cook­ing Asian cui­sine and con­fess­es a deep love for eat­ing the hum­ble ham­burg­er. “It’s sim­ple, but if you can make a great burg­er, it shows your skill. Grind­ing the meat your­self, lay­er­ing in pork bel­ly fat, cracked black pep­per, Amer­i­can cheese … it’s a craft,” she said. For her, food is still mag­ic—still that safe space where cre­ativ­i­ty meets com­fort.

Dy­er’s re­sume boasts stints at re­spect­ed es­tab­lish­ments like Bu­zo Os­te­ria Ital­iana, Carl­ton Sa­van­nah, and Mag­dale­na Grand. She learnt not on­ly tech­nique but al­so the psy­chol­o­gy of food—how peo­ple eat, why they eat, and what they’re look­ing for be­yond taste.

Her roles ranged from back-of-house prepa­ra­tion to client-fac­ing ser­vice, and each stop taught her a dif­fer­ent as­pect of the culi­nary ex­pe­ri­ence. At present, she is a cor­po­rate chef, where she merges home­style cook­ing with com­pa­nies’ large-scale vi­sion, em­body­ing com­pa­ny val­ues with­out los­ing her unique flair. She has al­ways tak­en her unique­ness to all her pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ences, de­scrib­ing her cook­ing as “putting my per­son­al­i­ty on a plate” and tak­ing a piece of home wher­ev­er she goes.

She is a woman who wears many hats, and her abil­i­ty to be a woman who has a large fam­i­ly along with an il­lus­tri­ous pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer is in­spir­ing. Her ad­vice to young women and as­pir­ing chefs? “Preg­nan­cy isn’t a sick­ness. Don’t feel you need to stop chas­ing your dreams. Cel­e­brate your moth­er­hood and your ca­reer; they can co­ex­ist.”

Dy­er has spent all nine months of var­i­ous preg­nan­cies on her feet in the kitchen and ad­vo­cates for women in the in­dus­try not to be scorned dur­ing their preg­nan­cies for con­tin­u­ing to work.

Chef Ar­i­anne Dy­er’s jour­ney is a tes­ta­ment to pas­sion, per­se­ver­ance, and pur­pose. She isn’t just cook­ing meals; she’s craft­ing sto­ries, rais­ing the next gen­er­a­tion, and re­mind­ing us all that there is no cut-off point to chas­ing your dreams.

Chef Ar­i­anne Dy­er can be con­tact­ed via email: apol­lon­ais@gmail.com