Turks and Caicos Islands - Dining Experience

A family holiday to the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England, and a visit to the Hotel Rockland’s kitchens that featured an up close and personal experience with an octopus, enticed a then, young Clive to take notice of the culinary arts, and consequently, became the motivating factors behind his aspirations to become a chef, simply to be in the kitchen to “get the good stuff”.

Beginning his 3 year classical chef training at London’s Westminster College at 16, Clive’s early CV was somewhat of an unconventional one, working summers and weekends at the London Zoo, his duties involving everything from cooking in the restaurant to pushing the popcorn cart and his personal favourite, the ice-cream cart. Culinary training complete, a highly skilled and talented Clive graduated Westminster as one of 40 chefs from an original crew of 120 with only one seemingly deep-rooted (pardon the pun) misgiving - a mandatory haircut!

Enterprising and entrepreneurial, Clive first ran his own small catering company before landing in the kitchen of one of the most prestigious country house hotels in Hampshire, England, the 5 star Chewton Glen. With a considerable penchant for the nomadic lifestyle, and an insatiable appetite to travel, the next several years evolved into a vacillating, diverse and cosmopolitan vitae virtually spanning the globe causing a compulsion on my part to take a pen to map and trace Clive’s Bohemian-like path, as this was a truly fascinating succession of destinations, with some revisited on more than one occasion. Following gigs at a few London restaurants, Clive headed across the Atlantic to West Hollywood where he often catered to a celebrity clientele of the rich and famous working for a catering company. A detour ‘down under’ to a Relais and Chateaux country house hotel outside Sydney, Australia preceded his ultimate arrival to the Turks and Caicos Islands, however, I was not about to put down my pen and map just yet.

The Terrace was his first endeavour in 1995 with friend and fellow chef, Stuart Gray. Immensely popular and featured in “Gourmet Magazine”, The Terrace evolved into Aqua Bar & Terrace Restaurant and relocated to the marina waterfront in 2002. Overlooking Turtle Cove Marina and its legion of admirable vessels, it is a truly engaging location day or night. Dockside dining is comfortable and relaxing, yet the cuisine here is definitively and distinctively special. The menu focuses on fresh, Caribbean flavours including many of the original Terrace favourites for their long list of devout regulars, and is the location where Clive generally spends the majority of his time today. Sporting a virtual cache of original culinary creations, Clive is innovative and inventive. He has probably prepared conch in more creative and imaginative ways than any other chef on Provo, citing his Conch Wontons as his signature dish that recently won “Grand Champion” status at the 2006 Conch Festival. An unadulterated lover of fresh fish (you can actually spot Chef Clive locking lips with an unsuspecting grouper on his catering website www.kissingfish.tc!) he is famous for his fresh fish, procured literally steps from your table. In addition, Chef Clive espouses the virtues of fresh ingredients whenever possible, having cultivated a close relationship with our own local hydroponics farm, Island Fresh Produce using their salad greens, herbs, tomatoes and cucumbers.

In 2004, Chef Clive added Bay Bistro at Sibonne Hotel to his repertoire, elegant yet casual, where the cuisine is international with a generous dash of the Caribbean’s exotic melange of tastes, again with the emphasis placed on the freshest ingredients. With an absolutely stunning location, location, location, dine steps from the powder-soft ivory sand and iridescent turquoise expanse that is world-famous Grace Bay Beach.

A successful and dynamic chef for over two decades, Clive augments his dining establishments with his catering expertise, accommodating anything from, but not limited to, weddings, rehearsal dinners, large corporate events, romantic and intimate anniversaries, boisterous birthday parties, special events, beach barbeques (including pig roasts) right on the beach or at either of his two restaurant locations, be it beachfront at Bay Bistro or harborside at Aqua. He can also cater gourmet meals for private jets, villas and condos with ease. Chef Clive seems to have discovered the secret to defying the metaphysical laws of being in two places at once. In fact, you could say three places at once. He attributes his success to his indispensable accomplices in both restaurants, front of house and in the kitchen. His wife Joan is an integral part of his success and the driving force behind his catering company, The Kissing Fish Catering Co.

With such an agenda it’s hard to imagine if or when Clive has any free time.

When wife Joan, has no ‘homework’ left for him to do, Clive relaxes and unwinds in his garden. Exhibiting a tremendous passion for gardening, it would seem a natural progression for a chef to have such an interest in the ‘fruits of the earth’, growing flowers, aubergines, pineapple, melon and mint, including lemongrass and basil for use in the restaurant. He also enjoys experimentation and has achieved great success with propagating new plants from cuttings.

Throughout our conversation, I must admit that quite often we slid off-track, frequently reverting to gardening, possibly more so than food! A family man, Clive enjoys spending time playing with their young son, especially on the beach, and of course, the basic necessities of life, eating and sleeping, when time permits.

A few years back, that nomadic urge reared its head again when in 2003; he and Joan took a year sabbatical to travel around the world with intentions on choosing yet another foreign destination to hang his toque. Their intriguing and well-rounded itinerary included Costa Rica, South Africa, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Australia. The trip was not only an extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime adventure, but also a consummate gastronomical experience, significantly and inevitably influencing and inspiring his culinary art form today. At the end of that year an interim return to Provo solidified the fact to them both that, “there’s no place like home”.

Oh - and those deep-rooted misgivings over the haircut? Still mandatory, although an insistent Clive succumbs only once a year - when he travels ‘over the pond’ to visit Mum and Dad.

By Mandy Rostance-Wolf
Reprinted from "Where When How - Turks & Caicos Islands" July/August 2007