Chef of the year

Czech-born Chef Roman is driven by a hunger to succeed and says he entered the Culinary Society’s competition with a determination that he would win.

Chef of the Year Chef Roman

He states, ‘When the Culinary Society’s president, Vidyadhara Shetty, asked me if I would participate in the competition, my initial reaction was to decline. I have been so busy working at the Marriott that I just could not see that I would have any time available to spare. In the end I decided to go for it and once I had made that decision I went in it with everything that I had. Coming second was not an option.’

In the end Roman won three bronze medals and a gold for his cold cook-off. He created an arugula soup with bresoala as a hot soup (bronze), a lobster and tropical fruit escabeche for a cold appetiser (bronze), a mango and apple cider cold soup with a shrimp salsa (bronze) and a pancetta wrapped monkfish in a callaloo risotto with orange segments, caviar crème freche and a chilli tomato salsa for mains, the latter winning him a gold medal.

Roman’s winning live cook off, which ultimately attained him the honour of Chef of the Year, consisted of an arugula, avocado and cherry tomato salad with a Caribbean fruit chutney topped with lime-infused salmon fillet, served as an appetiser. His main was a cilantro wrapped red snapper in roasted fingerling potatoes served in a broth of lemon grass, shitake mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes.

Roman’s began his early culinary training in Austria, Vienna where he spent four years in a culinary institute and working as a chef in a four star hotel at the same time.

Roman says, ‘I spent nine months of the year in the hotel, two full months at school and one month off. In that way I had a hands-on initiation into the culinary business right from the start.’

As with many chefs, Roman decided to travel to experience new cultures and cuisines, expanding his horizons and his culinary techniques. He travelled to Germany, back to the Czech Republic, and then Switzerland, before moving further afield to Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. His last stop before coming to the Cayman Islands was working on Peter Island in the BVI in an upscale luxury private resort.

Midway through 2004 Roman received a job offer from Cayman’s Westin Casuarina resort. Although the devastating Hurricane Ivan arrived in September of that year Roman still honoured his contract and arrived in Cayman three weeks after the storm, working as the Soups chef for both Casa Havana and Ferdinand’s restaurants.

One year later Roman moved to the Marriott, just as the hotel was undergoing massive refurbishment, with the huge task ahead of him of getting the hotel’s restaurant up and running again from scratch.

He says, ‘It was probably one of the biggest challenges that I have ever faced professionally. We had no staff, no china, nothing.’

However, out of the ruins the Marriott’s Solana restaurant was born and Roman says that he feels he has achieved what he set out to do – create a great mid-range restaurant with cuisine based on fresh ingredients served by cheerful staff in pleasant surroundings.

He states, ‘The restaurant is influenced by many different cuisines that all come together in a successful fusion of tastes. As long as the cuisine follows my three simple rules – using the freshest ingredients, keeping things simple and ensuring the best possible taste – I am happy using influences from many different cuisines. I would say, however, that my kitchen is European-based, with an emphasis on light Mediterranean/Italian cuisine.’

Roman says that his signature dishes at Solana come from this base cuisine. The Solana copping is Roman’s wonderful take on fish stew or bouillabaisse: a tomato-based stew full of lobster, swordfish and other seafood as well as herbs such as cilantro (coriander) and basil. Roman says it is always served with a finger bowl so customers can go ahead and enjoy themselves and not worry too much about making a mess. His duck brioche with pan-seared foe grass is another omissible dish from the Solana kitchen.

Now that the Marriott Beach Resort has been bought by the Marriott group, Roman says that he is excited about the future of the hotel and hopes that further investment in the restaurant will help to take his culinary efforts to even greater heights in the future.