Reeve Trott is what you might call a "well-rounded" sort of businessman. On first sight, you might think he was a fisherman or a sailor. With his sandy hair and ruddy complexion, he looks like an outdoors type. It turns out that this is not far from the truth. He enjoys sailing and has been involved with the Newport-Bermuda and Marion races.

As you might expect from the man who runs the International Imports shop on Par-la-Ville Road, he is a good cook and makes a mean curry.

He is also a keen swimmer. "I get up every day at 5 a.m. and swim from 6-7 a.m. in one of the school pools." He started the "Round the Sound Swim", a sponsored swim around Harrington Sound which has taken place every October for the past 12 years and has raised around $250,000 for charity. This year, it was in support of the Family Learning Centre. Reeve is very committed to supporting local charities.

International Imports Ltd, known by everyone as the "Cook Shop," is like an Aladdin's cave to people in the restaurant business. Asked why they don't change the name to the "Cook Shop", Reeve responds: "We haven't had time."

Situated on Par-La-Ville Road, it attracts most of the head chefs on the Island, from Cambridge Beaches, the Pickled Onion, and Port 'o' Call, to name a few, as well as visiting chefs off the cruise ships.

Marc Dobbels, the new executive chef at the Cambridge Beaches resort tells me that he is in there nearly every week. He can't say enough to praise Reeve Trott, describing him as more than a retailer... a "professional".

Reeve Trott says that his favourite thing to hear from customers is: "I'm sure you won't have this, but..." Most often he can contradict their assumption and pull that rabbit-shaped cookie cutter out of the hat.

He says he enjoys having a mix of customers - both amateur chefs and professional chefs. He wouldn't want the shop to be a homestore, purely aimed at housewives and has worked hard to keep clients at the big hotels. It's a source of pride to him that those in the industry regard him as someone who knows his way around a commercial kitchen.

But he also likes the way that his retail clients may bump into their favourite restaurant chefs in the shop, "You get chefs being collared by customers who want their recipe for creme brulee!" he laughs.

It's a successful business now and keeps both Reeve and his wife Sheena very busy. But it wasn't always a bed of roses. International Imports has come a long way since Reeve's father, Mickey Trott, started it in the 1950s. In those days it was on the corner of Front and King Street. Not an ideal location. Reeve says the concentration of deadbeats was not good for business. "It was difficult to get the housewives to climb over the Dismount customers."

Reeve came to work for his father by a circuitous route, first going to law school. His father never really pushed him to take over. With hindsight, it's probably a good thing that he didn't pass the bar exam. Instead he took a job working for the Bank of Bermuda, and the Bermuda office of a nickel mining company and when that came to an end, he started to work for his father.

This is not a silver spoon story. Unlike sons who took over successful businesses from their fathers, Reeve found himself in the middle of an ugly situation. A long-standing employee had been stealing from Reeve's father and the business was in a mess. Looking through the books, he found that the company owed a lot of money to banks and suppliers. The situation went from bad to worse, when two years later, tired out and stressed by the whole business, Mickey Trott died.

Faced with what to do with the business, Reeve says that at this point in 1981 a lot of people told him to forget about it: "To throw our arms up and walk away."

But for Reeve and his mother, Karleen Trott, giving up on his father's business was not an option.

They set about rebuilding the Chef Shop. "It was a real shoe string" says Reeve.

Eventually they managed to clear the debt that had built up. They got the tenants out of a building they owned on Par-La-Ville and moved the business to its current location.

Then, as cooking and kitchens became super chic, the business started to take off. Reeve had the foresight to renovate the building and to make more space on the shop floor so that retail customers could come in and browse around.

It was also a shrewd move to start the demonstrations which run between November and February. Chefs came in to showcase their talents and the audiences got inspired to buy themselves better equipment. Reeve says that the demonstrations have been tremendously useful for his own development as a businessman - better than any business course.

However not so great for developing his cooking repertoire: "I always have my back to them while I am washing up, so when I get home and try to reproduce the recipes, sometimes they don't turn out right!"

As for what makes the Chef Shop so popular, "We pride ourselves on being attentive" says Reeve. Not wishing to hog the limelight, he adds: "I should talk about the staff, we have great staff." He particularly wants to mention Ralph Gardner, who has been working in the store since Mr. Trott Senior's day. "Everyone thinks it's his [Ralph's store, which I don't mind," says Reeve.

Along with his mother and wife, now his young daughters have started to lend a hand in the shop. "We couldn't have managed without them in the summer," says Reeve. He believes that it's a good idea to get work experience early on. Perhaps significantly, when he was at prep school, he used to to have to help out in the kitchen.

As for future projects, he says he'd love to try working in a big restaurant.

He has huge respect for the executive chefs who direct the proceedings: "I think it's really exciting, almost like going to war!"

He even pesters his chef friends to let him be a dishwasher for the night.

This is certainly someone who doesn't mind rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in. Whether he'll get paid his $15 per hour as a kitchen hand, is another story.