When the Fairmont Southampton hotel closed in 2020, Jomeko Mallory was three-quarters of the way through his chef training.

To get his Red Seal chef certification he had a year of practical work left to do at the hotel and then exams to take at Holland College in Prince Edward Island, Canada.

“The Red Seal certification is the equivalent of an associate’s degree at the Bermuda College,” the 25-year-old explained.

He wanted to be a chef since his childhood days helping his grandmother make family dinners and started working at the Southampton Princess when he was 16.

When the doors of the hotel shut, he was told that his training would automatically continue at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, since that was also a Fairmont hotel. However, there was no such deal in place.

“I waited and waited for someone to call me,” he said. “Months passed. Finally, I got tired of waiting and applied to work at the hotel, myself.”

He had to start his apprenticeship all over again at the Hamilton Princess. He spent the next three years trying in vain to find someone who would help him take his final exams.

The world had cataclysmically shifted since the pandemic began. The person who handled his apprenticeship at the Department of Workforce Development had retired and there was no immediate handover of his case. Those who had trained him at the Southampton Princess had also retired or left. To make matters worse, Holland College itself closed.

It was not until the Hamilton Princess hired Adam Ashe as executive chef that things began to move again.

“I don’t know what he said to the general manager but shortly after he arrived they were sending me back to school,” Mr Mallory said. “I was so grateful. I was getting very discouraged. I am grateful to all those people who supported my journey.”

Mr Mallory took his final exams last December.

“To take the exams I had to go to a building in Toronto,” he said. “I have no idea where I was. The exams were four hours and I used every minute.”

Now, he whips out a photo of his certificate, kept on his phone, for anyone that asks about it. He plans to frame it and hang it in his living room.

“It is a big weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said.

Since then, he has been handling the breakfast shift at Crown & Anchor Restaurant at the Hamilton Princess. Every morning he makes hundreds of eggs not just for the restaurant but also for Fairmont Gold guests, overnight staff knocking off their shift and room-service clients.

“The hardest part is just making 5am,” he said. “I am on my own until 7am and then someone comes in to help. By 9.15am it is crazy in the kitchen. I cannot make mistakes, because then I could get complaints from guests. In the beginning it was a bit challenging but now I love it. I’m proud to tell people I’m the breakfast chef.”

Looking to the future, he would love to have a food truck.

“Being mobile appeals to me,” he said. “I could make my own time. If there was a county game on, I could be there, and if there was something happening in Somerset, I could pop up there.”

However, he said the food truck idea would be much further down the line.

He would like to see more young Bermudians coming into the food industry.

“There are not many Bermudian chefs here at the hotel,” he said. “There are not many female chefs here, either.”

He thought more could be done to go into local schools and encourage young people to consider the culinary arts.

“I would tell other young people to not give up when things get difficult,” he said. “Hang in there and persevere.”