When Bermudian Mark Williams found a job as chef de partie at the newly reopened Waterlot Inn in Southampton, it was a dream come true.

“It was very exciting to become a part of the team at legendary Waterlot,” he said. “Standards are very high. There is a lot of responsibility, but I like challenges.”

The 35-year-old’s road to becoming a professional chef has been a long and winding one.

“I always knew I wanted to be a chef, but did not know how to get there,” he said.

Instead, at 18, he joined the National Training Board scheme, and tried to be practical about his career trajectory.

“I called my father and asked him what was the highest paid trade,” Mr Williams said. “He said electrician, so that was the direction I went in. I was young, and did not necessarily think I would be an electrician for the rest of my life. I was working at a hotel as a beach attendant back then, and just wanted to earn some money.”

After qualifying, he worked as an electrician right up until the pandemic. Then in 2020, with social distancing in place, he found himself on a three-day work rotation. Suddenly, he was spending his days watching cooking videos and listening to culinary lectures. He decided it was now or never.

Mr Williams inquired about the culinary arts programme at the Bermuda College but learnt he would have to quit his job to do it.

“I went around to all the restaurants in town to get a job,” he said. “A few people called me back. I put in applications for kitchen porter jobs, wrongly thinking that was an entry-level position in the kitchen.”

Instead, Pickled Onion, on Front Street in Hamilton, offered him employment as an apprentice chef.

“I went in and I just loved the kitchen,” Mr Williams said. “I was just chopping vegetables for two weeks. They liked the way I worked.”

His future wife, Anastasia, began working at the restaurant two weeks after he started there, and was impressed by his work ethic.

“He was the only one working with a timer,” she said.

Mr Williams’s willingness to learn sent him up the ranks quickly. However, he was nagged by the idea that he was mostly learning how to advance in this particular restaurant.

“I wanted to actually learn how to cook,” he said.

He and Anastasia married a year and a half ago and moved to England so that he could attend Le Cordon Bleu London Culinary School.

“It was amazing,” Mr Williams said. “They were very strict, and really gave me standards.”

Again, his determination put him ahead of the curve.

“Most of my classmates were rich kids from other countries,” he said. “I had to take things more seriously, because I was spending my own money, not my parents’ money.”

As part of his programme, he did an apprenticeship at Gordon Ramsay’s The Savoy Grill at the Savoy Hotel in the Strand in London.

“Gordon Ramsay is not normally in the kitchen, he just owns it,” Mr Williams explained. “As soon as he comes in the hotel everyone in the restaurant knows. All the chefs say ‘Gordon is in the building! Clean up!’ It makes you real nervous.”

On television, Mr Ramsay is often portrayed as angry and caustic with the people working for him. In reality, he seemed like a nice person to Mr Williams.

“He even tried to shake my hand, but I was so nervous, I didn’t,” Mr Williams laughed. “Some guests had come all the way from Philadelphia to eat in his restaurant, so he brought them in the back to see the kitchen.”

Mr Williams studied three stages of cooking at Le Cordon Bleu, basic, intermediate and superior. He also took a culinary management course to design and implement his own restaurant.

Living and going to school brought some financial challenges for his family, so he worked in restaurants after school and on the weekends, as much as he could.

“My first job in London was at an amazing Indian restaurant called Kricket,” Mr Williams said.

Working there gave him a new appreciation for Indian cuisine.

“It was semi-fine dining,” he said. “They travel to India a lot and explore and find different dishes, and bring them back to London.”

One of the highlights of working there was going to a large garden on the outskirts of the city to gather wild garlic for the restaurant.

“It is only in season for two months,” he said. “It is not as harsh as regular garlic. It is really delicate. They pick the flowers and ferment them. We picked at least 30 big, black trash bags filled with garlic. They were heavy.”

He graduated from Le Cordon Bleu last June and is now back in Bermuda. His dream is to one day have his own fine dining restaurant on the island, offering Bermudian food.

His passion is creating new dishes.

“I like to explore different flavours and different techniques,” he said.

Recently, his uncle gave him Bermuda carrots straight from his garden.

“I made a chickpea hummus,” he said. “I made some pesto and put some pistachio on there. I kept the carrots raw because I wanted to be able to taste that. The dish was delicious.”

Mr Williams wanted to share his story to inspire others to chase their dreams.

“You only get one life,” he said. “You want it to be meaningful. I wanted to let people know that doing what they want to do might be a struggle, but it is worth it. Follow your dreams!”