Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

At 19, Ale­jan­dro May­ers bal­ances mak­ing hearty mac­a­roni pies, craft­ing gourmet fruit tarts and work­ing as a line cook at a pop­u­lar restau­rant, all while pur­su­ing a dream of trans­form­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s culi­nary scene. Af­ter win­ning the Ju­nior Chef ti­tle in The Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s Flame & Spir­it 2026 Com­pe­ti­tion, his long-term goal is to open what he hopes will be­come the Caribbean’s first Miche­lin-starred restau­rant.

“I want to trav­el, get in­to Miche­lin-star restau­rants and hope­ful­ly get a Miche­lin star of my own. I’ve al­ways had that in mind. I would love to see Trinidad have Miche­lin-star restau­rants, even if they’re not in the Caribbean as yet. I would love to see the qual­i­ty of those restau­rants in Trinidad,” he said.

May­ers be­lieves T&T has the po­ten­tial to be­come a stronger food tourism des­ti­na­tion.

“If you look at what most of the food tourism is, it’s from UK and US in­flu­ences. You don’t re­al­ly see it from in­side. So, see­ing that for Trinidad would be re­al­ly good for me… we have some of, if not the best food in the Caribbean,” May­ers ex­plained.

The La Ro­maine res­i­dent said his pas­sion for cook­ing and bak­ing be­gan at a very young age.

“When I was six, I start­ed off do­ing bak­ing class­es. I al­so did a Moth­er’s Day cook­ing class at an au­then­tic Ital­ian restau­rant, and we had to cook for our fam­i­lies on that day. I think from then I knew that I liked cook­ing, but I don’t think I knew I want­ed to be a chef at that point,” he rem­i­nisced.

Ini­tial­ly, he want­ed to be a ma­rine bi­ol­o­gist, but it was on­ly dur­ing the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic that he re­alised his dream of be­com­ing a chef. At just 14 years old, he mas­tered sev­er­al dish­es and desserts, in­clud­ing fruit tarts.

“I made this fruit tart that looked re­al­ly good, and I thought it could have gone in­to a re­al­ly nice bak­ery. That’s when I knew I had tal­ent for this, and that was the mo­ment that I knew I should ex­plore this as a ca­reer op­tion,” he added.

Af­ter grad­u­at­ing from Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, May­ers en­rolled in an As­so­ciate De­gree in Culi­nary Arts at the To­ba­go Hos­pi­tal­i­ty and Tourism In­sti­tute. Hav­ing gained ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing at Avala Restau­rant, May­ers is now a line chef at Trot­ters Restau­rant.

May­ers cred­it­ed the men­tor­ship he re­ceived dur­ing his time at Avala Restau­rant with shap­ing his de­vel­op­ment as a young chef. He added that his men­tors and fel­low alum­ni in­spired him to com­pete in the Flame & Spir­it com­pe­ti­tion.

This year’s com­pe­ti­tion was held at Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel on 15 June. May­ers shared that the com­pe­ti­tion was nerve-rack­ing, but he quick­ly got in­to the groove.

For the com­pe­ti­tion, May­ers pre­pared geera-spiced chick­en breast with man­go chimichur­ri, Pro­masa and Scotch Bon­net-crust­ed shrimp, cas­sa­va and sweet pota­to cro­quettes, chadon beni aioli and roast­ed pep­per purée. All the items, he said, were in­spired by T&T’s flavours.

Al­though May­ers was dis­sat­is­fied with the pre­sen­ta­tion of his dish, the judges were im­pressed enough to award him the ti­tle.

“When I heard that I won, it was like an­oth­er re­lief off my shoul­ders. So, I was hap­py that I made it, be­cause I have been think­ing about this since I was 17. So I was re­al­ly hap­py that I was able to ac­com­plish this goal that I worked hard for,” he re­called.

May­ers will next rep­re­sent T&T as part of the Na­tion­al Culi­nary Team, along­side the com­pe­ti­tion’s oth­er cat­e­go­ry win­ners. They will trav­el to Bar­ba­dos in No­vem­ber for a re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

The oth­er win­ners in­clude:

Chef of the Year: Nathanael Ge­bode

Pas­try Chef of the Year: Keenan Leza­ma

Bar­tender of the Year: Ronal­do Au­guste.