Mark Clarke loves putting his personal style to food. He is, after all, a talented chef. Mark doesn’t know when the idea of being a chef was bred, but from his mother’s recollection he was about age five or six.
“My mother said I always used to say I wanted to be a chef. She said I was always interested in cooking. I take her word for it,” he said with a chuckle.
And there’s no doubt it’s a God-given talent as the only training Mark has pursued is the Barbados Community College (BCC) associate degree in culinary arts.
“I didn’t do the big culinary schools. Because, for me, cooking is not a field where you can learn it in a classroom, it’s more of a practical . . . . Even if I was to go do a bachelor’s or master’s, where would that put me? I still wouldn’t have the experience. So I made up in my mind very early I wasn’t going to be going to culinary school,” he explained.
After he graduated from BCC, Mark got the opportunity to work at top restaurants across Barbados.
“I started my career at Turtle Beach. From there I moved to The Crane where I stayed for about two years. After that I moved to the West Coast where I worked at The Cliff for a few years,” he recalled.
The former Louis Lynch and Harrison College student left the island and headed to England to further his career. (DB)
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