Beatnik Rubaine moved to the UK for what he jokingly calls “DJ world domination”.

Reality hit when he arrived in London in 2005.

The gigs he was hired for didn’t bring in enough money, and then he was turned down for a slew of menial jobs including pouring coffee.

“I had been working as an electrician in Bermuda but I couldn’t see myself doing that for the rest of my life,” the 50-year-old said.

“I went to England to explore my talents, which included DJing. I wanted to find new opportunities.”

After an unsuccessful year of job hunting, he bluffed his way into a job as a chef.

“I was in a place called Leon’s café telling another Bermudian, Andre Simons, about my troubles,” he said. “Leon’s a health food/fast food café. Andre called the chef over. The chef asked what I did. I said, ‘People seem to like my cooking’.”

The chef hired him on the spot, not knowing that Mr Rubaine was completely inexperienced.

“I loved to cook at home, but I didn’t have any training,” he said. “In truth, I didn’t know a thing.”

It didn’t take long for his new employer to figure things out, but Mr Rubaine got lucky.

“He had the patience to teach me what he knew.

“There were other people he trained at that café who went on to do very well for themselves in cooking.

“It was difficult because I felt like I was moving at 100 miles per hour whereas people who were more confident in their abilities were able to take it slower.”

Eventually, he caught up and when Leon’s opened another branch a year later, Mr Rubaine was made the head chef.

“It was more like head grill chef,” he said, “but I was still making inroads into something I never considered when I left Bermuda.”

He left after two years and worked at a number of cafés and restaurants.

Embarrassing botch-ups along the way served as great learning opportunities.

“For example, I didn’t know how to cook squid,” he said. “I served overcooked squid to one of my bosses and her son, in the middle of a busy restaurant. I lost that job. That was the only job I was happy to lose as the café owner wasn’t very nice.”

Today, he considers cooking one of his passions, and he tries to emulate Michelin chefs.

“I don’t really have a particular thing I like to cook, I just like cooking,” he said. “However, I do like cooking fish although you can’t get the same kind of fish in London as you do in Bermuda.”

He’s now a chef in Bluebrick Café, a vegan eatery in Dulwich.

“Vegan cooking is so much easier,” he said. “You don’t have the same possibilities of cross-contamination when you are dealing with meats. Also, the recipes are extensive in some respects but not complicated. They are quite simple.”

He started baking four years ago and now supplies several eateries with everything from vegan cakes and bakewell tarts, to carrot cakes and millionaire shortbread. That’s in addition to his catering company, Beatnik’s Delicious Eats.

The extra work means he’s had less time to DJ.

“There have been some technical changes in DJ work that I need to catch up with. I will eventually,” he said. “Right now, my focus is cooking. It is definitely my passion.”

As a child in Bermuda, he loved helping his great-grandmother Grace Rubaine prepare Sunday dinner.

“Of course, in those days you didn’t call it cooking, because men didn’t cook,” he said.

“It was called ‘helping’. I was out on my own when I was 16, so I had to cook, in some fashion, to feed myself. When I moved to London I thought I knew how to cook, but the reality was I knew nothing.

“Today, I would throw some of the old things I made in the bin. They were rubbish.”

His wife Catherine is from Manchester although they met in Bermuda. They have a nine-year-old daughter, Mya.

“Mya helps me in the kitchen sometimes, usually when she’s trying to avoid doing her homework,” Mr Rubaine said.

“She made her own pancakes this morning for the first time.”

He keeps in touch with his Bermuda heritage through annual Bermuda Day events in London and Liverpool that he helps organise.

“Unfortunately, I am too busy organising to do any cooking for it,” he said. “We may get up to 1,000 people coming to a Bermuda Day event.”

London might be the land of hard-won opportunities for Mr Rubaine, but he still misses Bermuda.

“I miss my people,” he said. “In the UK it is difficult to have honest conversations with people, no matter who you are talking to. Here, you feel you have to watch what you say. I don’t miss the sea and sun that much; I am not here for the weather.

“I am on a mission, to make a living from my talents. I want to live without having to feel that I am in a box. The journey has been amazing.”

Get in touch on Facebook under Beatnik’s Delicious Eats or e-mail: beatniksdeliciouseats@hotmail.com