True Competition Lies Within
The first baking class Pedro Newton attended was for cake decorating. “On the day of graduation, I made my family proud because I got five of the six first prizes to be won,” Newton says quite matter-of-fact.
— By Kylee Ross
— Photography Kenneth Theysen
Pedro Newton
Executive Chef – Champers
Newton is adamant that he had to do well in the class. For one, he says, the boys outside of the community centre where the class was held made fun of him for joining the class. More importantly, a friend of Newton’s had previously taken the class and won two first prizes, “and we had a running that I would do better than he did,” says Newton. He doesn’t gloat when he talks about competition. He states the facts and calmly recounts the events as he remembers them.
The class was scheduled from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., but Newton would show up around 6 p.m. “[I went when] it was only myself and the instructor there, and I would work with the instructor alone.” Newton would go home, turn a cake tin upside down, and practise all of the techniques he had just learned well into the evening. “I worked very hard to make sure that I did better than my friend,” says Newton while remaining humble in his delivery. “Even if I was only going to win one more prize than he did.”
Soon after, Newton applied to The Hospitality Institute and attended part-time. He registered for his next class, which was a cake and pastry class. “I think I did really well. I got an A there,” says Newton. “I like to just let my work speak for me.”
His first job in the industry was at Shakey’s Pizza—a well-known American franchise. “We used to try to see who could cut chicken the fastest,” Newton recalls. Employees in the kitchen cut whole chickens into nine pieces, with the fastest cut times written on the wall behind them. “I’m going to do better than you did,” Newton remembers telling a friend who held the record. His inflection goes up as he repeats what he said all those years ago, making what could sound intimidating into more of a playful nudge. His friend showed him how he cut the chicken so fast. When Newton tried to beat the record time himself, he matched it. The time after that, he beat it.
“I wanted to do a bit better. I wanted to do a bit more,” says Newton as he sums up how he came to the end of a five-year run at Shakey’s. Newton continued to best himself by moving up in kitchens around the island. He worked as a prep cook at Brown Sugar, a junior pastry chef at The Royal Pavilion (now known as Fairmont Royal Pavilion) and then as a sous-chef at Lone Star.
“Because of the person that I am, most evenings I would get to [The Royal Pavilion] at 2 or 3 o’clock and would finish my prep by 4:30. Then, I would go from station to station assisting until we were all ready to go for a break,” says Newton. He quietly learned from the senior sous-chef preparing sauces, among other tasks, until one day the sous said, “Today is yours. Let me see what you can do,” as a challenge. “From then on, every evening after I would finish my prep in the pastry shop, I would assist him with the sauces,” says Newton. “Pastry is my first love, but soups and sauces are my strength.” Even now as executive chef, Newton says he makes the bases, marinades and sauces for the dishes at Champers—and he created the recipes.
From the outside, it seems that it’s in Newton’s nature to push the limit of what he thinks he is capable of. So in true form, he pivoted his professional trajectory. “In my experience working in the kitchen as a chef, I saw a lot of subpar service and products coming through the door,” says Newton. “And I had an affinity for fish and fish processing. So I started dabbling in the fish business by selling flying fish.” Champers was one of Newton’s biggest customers. “I always said to myself when I delivered [to Champers], if I ever go back to the industry, I would love to work there because it was always busy,” says Newton. “I always marvelled at going up the stairs, taking the fish into the kitchen, and seeing the intensity in the kitchen.”
After many years of success running his own business, Newton eventually had to cut losses and make the difficult decision to reset his career path once more. “I made a conscious decision that [cooking] is what I was trained to do,” says Newton. “This is what I know how to do best.”
Newton keeps the spirit of how he learned the profession alive at Champers by guiding exploration and fostering friendly competition. “We do a lot of cross-training in the kitchen,” says Newton. On the rare occasions when there is downtime, he encourages the chefs to switch stations and learn from each other. “We've even done in-house competitions in the kitchen,” says Newton. Wine pairings, creating dishes, mixology competitions. “I don’t want to get too comfortable in what I'm doing,” says Newton. “I think of myself as a work in progress. Every day is a new challenge, something different to do. But I face it head on.”
