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Guest Chef - Aqua
Kabuti Lockhart Aqua at the Hilton
When you grow up in an extended family of cooks, chances are you won’t become a banker or a carpenter.
Kabuti Lockhart, executive chef at Aqua–the new fine dining restaurant at the British Colonial Hilton hotel–did what came naturally, following in the footsteps of his talented parents.
Chef Lockhart prepares haute cuisine dishes in a style he describes as “a bit nouveau” with “a lot of fusion.” At the same time, everything he makes is grounded in the traditions of Bahamian cookery. His delicious entrées are “a blend of down-home style and gourmet.”
Chef Lockhart learned the basics at his parents’ knee. His father was a chef at Club Land’Or on Paradise Island, and his mother ran a catering business. As a consequence, Lockhart “grew up around hotels,” he says.
Thus, when he entered the apprentice program at the Bahamas Hotel Training College in 1990, he had an advantage over classmates. “I was cooking before I went to college,” he says, “so I had a big edge.”
After school, the master-chef-to-be worked for three years in the kitchen at the Crystal Palace Resort & Casino on Cable Beach. “I was really lucky there,” he says today. “I worked with some really good expat chefs, so it was a lot of good on-the-job training.”
Lockhart subsequently sharpened his skills at other restaurants, developing a special passion for Italian cuisine. Then he became an executive sous chef at Sandals Royal Bahamian on Cable Beach, where he worked for eight years.
After operating as a private caterer for a while, Lockhart returned to the world of haute cuisine, taking over as chef at the British Colonial Hilton six years ago. There he leads a team that has created a menu of “international favourites with a Caribbean flair.”
The wow factor
Chef Lockhart says he favours “a bit of a Mediterranean mix, so you’ll find that a lot of my style is Mediterranean fused with Caribbean.” A dish exemplifying this approach to fine dining is Aqua’s lobster fettuccine Alfredo.
He believes that flavours and presentation go hand in hand, and he likes to leave the menu description general enough “to allow for the wow factor … room for some surprise.
“When [the dish] is placed in front of you, it’s ‘oh, wow!’ You really weren’t expecting that–and that’s what we’re working to do at Aqua.”
Two desserts, not for calorie counters, demonstrate what Chef Lockhart calls the wow factor: the molten chocolate delight–a liquid-centre chocolate cake with espresso-infused whipped cream served with a fresh mint and raspberry compote; and the chef trio–chocolate mousse, Bahamian bread pudding and island coconut cake.
This season Chef Lockhart is wowing diners with his buccanero coquiel, a signature dish that he designed especially for Aqua.
Chef Lockhart may be the creative force that drives the engine here, but he credits his all-Bahamian culinary brigade for making it happen every day. Among them is Peter Major, the executive pastry chef, whom Lockhart calls “the best … on the island.”
From such a team, he says, “everything else just flows. You can talk about the ambience and all that, but at the end of the day [it’s the kitchen crew that] brings it all together.”
Buccanero coquiel
½ lb shrimp
½ lb lump crab meat
½ lb scallops
1 small onion, sliced
1 bay leaf
½ cup dry white wine
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
½ cup heavy cream
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper
Pinch of cayenne
2 tbsp minced green onions
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup shredded Gruyère
¼ cup of bread crumbs
8 scallop shells
Preheat broiler. Lightly butter scallop shells and set aside. Preheat skillet or sauté pan at medium heat. Sauté scallops and shrimp with tablespoon of butter. Add onions, garlic, fresh basil and thyme and cook onions until translucent. Remove scallops and shrimp from pan and set aside. Add remaining butter and flour and stir constantly for two minutes to form a light roux. Add dry white wine and reduce it to half. Add heavy cream and one tsp of fresh lime juice and bring to a boil. Add salt, pepper and cayenne. Allow to simmer. Add Gruyère or Swiss cheese. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a separate pot, to make mashed potatoes, add diced potatoes to cold water and bring to a boil. When fork-tender, strain liquid, add butter, salt and pepper to taste. Add heavy cream. Mash and fold all ingredients until fluffy. Set aside. Fold scallops, shrimp and lump crab meat into the cream mixture. Place scallop shells on baking sheet and fill with seafood mixture.
Pipe mashed potatoes around the perimeter of the scallop shells ¼-inch thick, using a piping bag with a star tip. Lightly sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and toasted bread crumbs.
Place under broiler until lightly browned. Place on a platter and serve. Serves four.
Lobster Wellington
2 crawfish (spiny lobster)
6 oz leaves of rainbow Swiss chard or spinach
Sautéed mushrooms [optional]
2 sheets puff pastry
Egg yolk
Water
Salt and pepper to taste
Season lobster with salt and pepper and boil for nine mins. Completely remove all the meat from shell and cool. Replace cooled meat in the shell.
Separate chard stems or spinach leaves. Blanch chard or spinach by dropping it into boiling water for one min. Then shock the leaves in ice water and towel dry.
Lay out leaves to form a flat sheet in the shape of a square. Measure enough to wrap the lobster. Wrap lobster in leaves and tuck in the edges. Leave the tail out (see photo).
Place the wrapped lobster on the sheet of puff pastry and leave the tail out. Cut and remove any excess pastry dough. Mix egg wash mixture using egg yolk and water. Fold the edges together with a half-inch overlap. Seal with egg wash. Bake at 375° for 30 mins or until golden brown. Slice and serve. Serves two.
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GuestChef_Aqua_DGJul10
Guest chef
Kabuti Lockhart Aqua at the Hilton
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