Ryan Solien, the newest chef at Victoria Grill, has prepared meals for rockstars, cooked for President Barack Obama and toured with the Cirque Du Soleil.

If that’s not enough excitement, he’s also hoping to take local cuisine to the next level by elevating simple comfort foods.

Mr Solien said: “Island Restaurant Group has some fantastic things going on like our catering, which is pretty much killing the competition.

“We are doing things that no one else is doing which is quite exciting. Since I arrived a month ago I’ve wanted to focus on growing our brand by offering more attention to detail.

“I’m really focused on fresh fish and southern seafood. My goal is to have no frozen fish enter the doors here, seeing that frozen fish is actually quite common in kitchens in Bermuda.”

Although there’s a great deal he wants to accomplish, he insists he’s not doing it alone and has a great team supporting him.

At Victoria Grill the theme is southern coastal cuisine with a heavy seafood influence, Mr Solien said.

“It’s comfort food, but we are trying to elevate it and take things like chicken and waffles and use our chef’s expertise to elevate it into something closer to an upscale dining experience.”

The new chef said he also wants to offer the best desserts and pastries, so that the restaurant can become a go-to stop for sweet after meal treats.

Mr Solien has been cooking ever since he was a child helping to peel potatoes at his family’s Italian restaurant.

As a teenager he found work at an advertising agent, but he soon found his heart wasn’t in it. Then in the early 90s he decided to go to culinary arts school in San Francisco.

After that he enjoyed a host of jobs in places like New Orleans, Los Angeles and Jamaica.

One of his more high profile jobs was as a chef to stars like Bruce Springsteen, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Tool and Godsmack.

Mr Solien said: “My friends in LA are in the music business so that worked out perfectly for me. They managed artists so I got hooked up with them doing that and it was a lot of fun.

“I bounced to a few places in Santa Barbara and came here to Bermuda and was here for about a year and a half and I loved Bermuda.

“I left after a few years to go to California and work in an amazing camping resort. They called it ‘Glamping’ because people would come to this secluded place in the Sierra Mountains and I would cook five-course gourmet meals out in the middle of nowhere and people were like: ‘This is better than a lot of restaurants we go to in the city.’”

From there he went to work at Big Sky Resort in Montana, where he had the chance to cook for the President.

He said: “President Obama came and stayed at the hotel and I was able to cook for him. He has come back a few times since then, I would like to think it was because of my cooking, but probably not.

“It was a big deal as far as secret service and all that. As I was preparing his food there was a chef that was in charge of making sure his food was okay and the secret service agents were by my side the whole time to make sure I did everything properly. I made him simple, comfort food, nothing too elaborate.”

After that he found a job cooking for the entertainers with the Cirque Du Soleil touring show OVO for about a year.

He said it was a “really great” experience, but that adventure came to an end when the tour left for Australia.

After a short stint cooking at a Sandals Resort in Jamaica, Mr Solien got an offer to work at the Montauk Yacht Club, a very exclusive property in the Hamptons. While there he took on an administrative role, looking after 40 chefs and 100 servers, and was tasked with putting out up to about 3,000 plates a day.

But he longed to return to his first love of cooking great food.

“I was fortunate enough to get in contact with Island Restaurant Group and they invited me to come back to Bermuda and I was like ‘How soon do you want me here?’”

Mr Solien said there was nothing greater in the culinary profession than creating great dishes that made people happy.

“You don’t work the kind of hours and days we do unless you have a passion for making others happy and get satisfaction from serving guests,” he said.

“The best reaction is when someone tells you the food is amazing or the best they’ve ever had and they come back to get that same dish. Return guests, where you keep seeing the same faces, that’s when you know you are doing something right.”