Family Ties: Chef Avion Caine on Expectations and Inspiration for his Cooking at Hugo’s

Chef Avion Caine has a lot to live up to in terms of cooking. His mom is the proprietor and chef of Jeff Cozy Bar, located opposite Brandons Beach in Deacons, where he grew up. “I started cooking because of her”, says the young chef as we chat in the mercifully air-conditioned lounge of Hugo’s, a sparkling high-end beachside restaurant with an upper deck and patio that opened in December 2017 in Speightstown.

^{— By Amie Watson     — Photography: Kenneth Theysen
— Cover: Avion Caine, Head Chef – Hugo’s Barbados}

“My mom had a cook shop. It’s like a rum shop that serves food”, he says. Caine grew up peeling vegetables while she put out plates of Bajan classics like pork souse, cou-cou, rice and peas and macaroni pie. “I did the majority of the knife work, but the seasoning was up to her. In her kitchen, I’m the commis and she’s the chef. And sometimes tasting was up to me”, he jokes.

Caine may have started cooking because of his mom, but his style has always tended a bit more upscale. When he was twelve, she left on vacation and he took over cooking for the family. “The first dish I did was a roast chicken with a mushroom stuffing. I read it in a cookbook. The whole family came over.” It might not have been mom-quality, but his family was impressed enough to let him keep cooking for the next two weeks that mom was away.

After that, he never stopped. Now half of her cook shop kitchen is devoted to Caine’s own experiments – gels and foams and techniques that are a far cry from his mom’s home cooking. But his mom has always been a tough critic, he says, and her tastes became Caine’s model for what it means to cook good food.

“My mom was always the person in the family who pulled everybody together. She did the cooking at family functions. She used to tell me all the time, if you’re a big chef, you need to taste your food. I always try to match my flavours for hers”, he says. So even though Caine’s menus feature fine dining fare, his mom’s influence can still be felt at Hugo’s.

Take his octopus carpaccio with cucumber pickle, a corn- and rice-flour fried tentacle, a savoury breadfruit crumble and a textbook aïoli punched up with cumin. “That’s inspired by the cook shop”, he says.

“I also do a plantain salad with roasted peppers, cilantro and a lime dressing.” The fresh turmeric in the dressing makes for a pungent counterpoint to the sweet chunks of plantain in the all-Bajan dish.

But the crisp-skinned barracuda with chimichurri-marinated yam and sweet cherry tomatoes poached in a cinnamon-spiked tomato consommé then peeled and served with roasted asparagus and champagne beurre blanc is all Caine.

The bestselling chicken masala is classic Caribbean curry: cumin, coriander, cardamom, tomatoes, lemongrass, garlic, ginger and coconut milk make a tikka spice paste that coats succulent chicken breast and comes with pappadams, raita and saffron basmati. “The majority of our guests are British”, he says, explaining the popularity of the comfort food dish.

His mom has come to the restaurant. “She likes pasta with seafood, gluten-free”, says Caine. That’s part of why he made sure that his menu could accommodate dietary restrictions, by aiming to never have to switch out more than one item from a dish. “We had an herb-crusted barracuda with couscous and grilled zucchini, so I can replace the flour in the crust with rice noodles and the couscous with potatoes. And the bulgur and peas are a vegan option.” Traditional rice and peas would be naturally vegan too, but he wanted to up the nutritional value of the dish and incorporate more superfoods, says Caine.

Caine still eats his mom’s food once a day before or after work. “Her souse is the best in the world”, he says. “It has a depth of flavour. She uses pork shoulder and belly and ears, tongue, feet.”

Despite the family pressure, Caine might be his own toughest critic. While he doubts he’ll ever make a souse as good as hers, his snapper had the crispiest, crunchiest skin of any seafood dish I’ve eaten on the island (served with incredibly finely brunoised tomato and red onion salsa with minced lemongrass).

But as fancy as his own culinary creations can get, he always comes back to making each dish taste good. If he had to choose a last meal, it’d be his mom’s cheesy, spicy, tuna casserole. “I can’t do it like hers. In terms of flavours, she’s awesome.”

Having not tried his mom’s tuna casserole, I can’t say for sure, but I’m fairly certain he’s been an excellent student.

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Hugo’s
Barbados

Sand Street
Speightstown
St. Peter
(246) 624-4846

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