There have been days when staff at the new Ocean Club restaurant at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel, could say the fish was so fresh they literally caught it themselves.

This was the case recently when a Fairmont pastry chef landed a 120 lb. tuna for the restaurant.

“Our pastry chef brought it in and laid it on the table,” said Ocean Club sous chef Kim Dean. “I was like, ‘it is bigger than me’.” Miss Dean put on a bunch of plastic aprons and went to work, hacking up the fish with a knife as big as a machete.

“The head is the hardest because when the tuna is that big the skin is so tough to get through,” she said.

It was all part of the Ocean Club’s mandate to provide fresh seafood with a contemporary Asian twist. A good part of the tuna probably went to dishes on the menu such as Bermuda harissa spiced tuna tartar with avocado and mango.

Unfortunately, Miss Dean said tuna has been a rare catch this year for local fishermen. Such are the variables of running a seafood restaurant.

The Ocean Club opened on April 16, replacing the old Whaler Inn overlooking the Fairmont Southampton’s South Shore beach.

“At the Fairmont we recognise that our clientele is ever changing,” said Fairmont Southampton’s food and beverage director Leetroy Walker. “Bermudians are well travelled, and, nowadays, are very sophisticated in their palates. They understand what food is.”

He said the Whaler Inn had been successful for its time frame, but it was time to move on. And the new Asian fusion concept appears to be working. The number of private functions at the restaurant has shot up since the Whaler Inn days.

“We have had groups from 35 to 170 renting the place out,” said Mr. Walker. “We can do 200 at any given time. Our smallest private party size (for reserving the entire restaurant) is 35.”

Mr. Walker is a Bermudian who has spent twenty years working in the hospitality industry overseas in Manhattan, New York, North Carolina, Florida and London, England. For a short time he also worked locally in management at the now defunct Castle Harbour Marriott. He has been back in Bermuda with the Fairmont for just over a year.

“After achieving some of my earlier goals and having a family, I wanted to come home professionally and bring my family. My daughters are in highschool, and I wanted them to get a feel for the island as I did growing up.”

He was first drawn to the industry while working as a bus boy at the Elbow Beach Hotel. Later, he fell into the industry more firmly while working in Manhattan at the famous Seagrill at Rockefeller Plaza.

Sous chef Kim Dean came to Bermuda from Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada in 2001 to work at the Fairmont. Four years ago she became sous chef when the Fairmont opened Bacci Restaurant.

“I have learned so much more as things go on,” she said. “Fairmont has given me a great opportunity to learn a lot of new things and grow career-wise and personal-wise.

“Bacci gave me a first start as a manager. They really helped me to learn and grow as a manager and hopefully to be more of a manager that would help teach others to grow as well. To me that is very important as well. You can never stop learning.”

While at Bacci, Miss Dean was sent on a tour of Italy where she experienced authentic Italian food in such places as Verona, Rome, Tuscany and Venice, among others.

“In Italy, they don’t do a lot to the food. I wouldn’t say it is plain, but it is very basic. However, the flavours are so great because they use only the freshest ingredients. I would love to go to Asia to tour, but I don’t have any plans to any time soon.”

Although the food at the Ocean Club is quite different from Bacci, it is perhaps this fresh food concept that Miss Dean has transferred over.

“The Ocean Club is about fresh seafood with a contemporary Asian feel,” she said.

“I wouldn’t want to say it is completely Asian fusion. We wouldn’t want to take away from the fresh seafood that we get here.

“When Fairmont Chef de Cuisine Michael Scott first started working on the menu I found it was extremely inventive. He has a great palate for flavours. I was really excited about some of the things he was doing here. I really wanted to get involved.

“It is a huge learning experience for me because this is food I have never done before. It will be great for me. I do still have a lot to learn about this type of food.” She said her favourite thing on the menu is a dish where scallops are wrapped in applewood smoked bacon and then covered with a lobster and lemon grass coconut sauce.

“It has a mild kick to it with a bit of red curry paste,” she said. “The flavours together are just outstanding. To me the sauce always makes the dish. My favourite appetiser would be the muscles. Again that has a curry sauce in it, but when the muscles open they change the sauce. I am not a huge fan of curry, but with the muscle flavour in it it is just exquisite.”

She said when running an Asian fusion restaurant, getting certain ingredients to Bermuda could be a challenge.

“Once you do source an ingredient and know where it is and who to get it from it is easy after that,” she said. “It is just the first step. Getting vegetarian oyster sauce was a bit of a challenge. We got that specifically for our vegetarian customers. That was the only thing that was extremely difficult.

“The Wagyu beef was extremely difficult for one of our salads. We received a few wrong orders with that, but it might have been a translation problem. Wagyu is a type of cattle that are pampered. The normal fat you get on a steak is on the outside, whereas this, the fat is marbled through the meat so when it is cooked, it all melts and makes it especially moist. Ours comes from Australia.”

Another challenge for Miss Dean has taking on a managerial role in an industry that is still mostly dominated by men.

“When I first arrived on the island I was the first female in the dorms,” she said. “It has been a challenge, but is becoming a lot better. There are a lot more female chefs these days and we are starting to be taken seriously. Before, you had to work twice as hard as any man to be taken seriously. Now they are starting to realise we can do this job. Right now there are three female chefs working here.”

She said having more women in a kitchen helped to balance things out.

“I think it helps tame the chefs down as well,” she said. “A kitchen becomes more harmonious if you have a mix of different things as opposed to just one. In any position you have to prove yourself, and you should. Why should they (the people who work under you) trust you? The way people work in a kitchen is that you have to have complete trust. You are working with fire all the time.”