At 13 years old, Keith Bean Jr may have found his calling.He’s been working in the kitchen at Bone Fish Bar & Grill for since last May, and is to attend a training programme at New York’s French Culinary Institute this summer.It’s hard to believe that only a year ago he was a reluctant entry in a junior cooking competition at the Bermuda College.“My mother [Karen Bean] told me that I had to go in the Bermuda Young Chef competition,” said the Zion Academy student. “To be honest I wasn’t too pleased.”The wahoo and soya sauce dish he made so impressed the judges that he won an apprenticeship position at Bone Fish in Dockyard. He now helps out there on weekends and holidays.“When he presented us with this dish, we were just amazed,” said Bone Fish executive chef and owner Livio Ferigo, a judge in the Young Chef competition. “One of us who had been cooking for decades could have made it. You could see he was talented. We talked to his parents, and his mother asked if he could come to the restaurant and work with us.”At Bone Fish, Keith now helps with meal preparation.The average day will send him to the deep fryer, he’ll peel potatoes, cut up vegetables and immerse himself in the workings of a restaurant kitchen.Asked if he found working with a busy staff overwhelming, the teenager shrugged.“I don’t find it stressful working in the kitchen because it is something that I like doing,” he said.Mr Ferigo said as the staff got to know Keith, he only continued to impress them.“When you are a chef you either have it or you don’t and he has it,” said Mr Ferigo. “He is very comfortable with knives and he has a great personality. He is always polite, on time and enthusiastic — no matter how intense it gets in the kitchen. It is a great atmosphere between the chefs at Bone Fish and they all welcome him like a son.”Mr Ferigo is on the board of directors of the Chefs Association of Bermuda.Wanting to help Keith go further, he presented the teenager to the organisation. Its members agreed to sponsor Keith’s participation in a two-week summer programme at the French Culinary Institute in New York City.“The Bermuda Chefs Association was happy to sponsor him,” said Mr Ferigo. “We wish him all the best. When he has done his diploma we at Bone Fish would like to employ him. We want to train him to be proper in every aspect of the kitchen. We want to make him successful as a Bermudian chef.”Keith first learned the basics by helping his mother who caters on a small scale for family and friends. His father, Keith Sr, said the Beans have cooking in their blood, so he wasn’t surprised when his son showed a knack for it.“We are just really proud,” he said. “He has found something that he likes doing and I hope that he sticks with it. He is pretty talented.”To those who know Keith, it will come as no surprise that he won the May competition with a wahoo recipe. His great passions are fishing — and cooking fish.“We make fish [dishes] a lot in my house,” the teenager said. “I like to make different kinds of fish. I go fishing with my father. I like to go deep sea fishing and catch big fish and sometimes I just like going fishing off the rocks. I sometimes cook large dinners for my family. Recently, I cooked lobster for them. This was a bit challenging. I pricked my fingers on the spines trying to crack the shell, but I managed.”He doesn’t mind eating seafood either, as his favourite dish on the Bone Fish menu is calamari. He really likes the sauce in the dish.