Sometimes you have to lose to win. Entrepreneur Shorne Benjamin became the chef of a popular restaurant as a result of this.
Cuisine Noir reports Benjamin once had a job on Wall Street working as a stockbrocker after he obtained a degree from Mercy College in New York. The career path was in alignment with his family’s backgrounds in finance and accounting.
“When you get the opportunity to come to the U.S., you recognize that sacrifices were made,” he told the outlet. “That was on my mind and set the tone for me to try to be successful. I wanted to make them proud and not make them feel disappointed.”
However, he lost his job in 2008 during the economic crash, and the standstill allowed him to pivot his attention towards his love for cooking, which began in St. Lucia with his grandmother Ma Benji’s comfort foods when he was just 8 years old. He made the decision to enroll in the International Culinary Center, which was named French Culinary Institute of New York at the time, and that would lead to a decade-long career in the fine dining sector.
In the wake of COVID-19, Benjamin knew it was time to establish his own restaurant and he would do so in Brooklyn, NY.
“Cooking saved me during the pandemic. It made me work to create a financial stream for myself. All of that gave me the opportunity to open Fat Fowl,” he explained.
He also cited the importance of creating a space that could bring people together and knew Caribbean cuisine would be the gateway.
“Caribbean cuisine has excellent, warm flavors; we use simple ingredients to make something tasty. One of my favorite things about St. Lucia is our sense of family and community and how we eat together,” he told EBONY magazine. This was never more missed than during the pandemic when we couldn’t gather and we looked to food to evoke emotions. I was missing that in New York. I wanted to harness it and let it be my influence on the city.”
Today Fat Fowl is a staple in the Brooklyn community serving sides including mac and cheese, black fried rice, and sweet plantains and signature specials such as jerky chicken, a shrimp curry burger with mango curry mayo, and oxtail grilled cheese.
“I always tell people if I put the food on a real plate, you would see the quality. The elevation is based on flavor and appearance,” he mentioned to Cuisine Noir. “They could go to a five-star restaurant, and it would be the same quality as Fat Fowl.”
Beyond his work through Fat Fowl, Benjamin’s accolades also include winning the Grace Jamaican Jerk Festival Celebrity Chef Throw Down and becoming a semi-finalist in the International Iron Chef Competition based in Toronto, Canada, with both feats accomplished in 2017, per the outlet.
He has also shown off his culinary skills on Food Network’s “Beat Bobby Flay” and “Chopped.”
“I just celebrated a birthday recently, and I reflected on the growth I’ve had and the people around me who have given positive encouragement,” Benjamin expressed. “You look at what you’ve done, and you don’t take it for granted. It feels good to be in this position now, but I can still feel the scars that I went through to get to this point.”
