This year marks the 50th anniversary of Rockhouse Hotel and the 20th for Rockhouse Foundation, the hotel’s charitable arm. As part of the celebrations a special edition of its Dinner on the Beach series was hosted on June 22, 2024, with New York’s first black Michelin Star Chef Charlie Mitchell. Over 120 guests tucked in for an evening inspired by Mitchell’s fine dining sensibilities, influenced by the art and culture of New York City, on the shores of Rockhouse’s sister property Skylark Negril Beach Resort, home of Miss Lily’s Restaurant and its culinary director chef Andre Fowles.
Mitchell, a 2024 James Beard Awardee for Best Chef and co-owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Clover Hill in Brooklyn Heights, New York, spoke on his process for the evening. “Coming out here to Negril to cook had me on Andre’s home turf. He guided me on what’s good and ingredients we can use.
That sparked inspiration and from there it was just having some fun with it, coming up with flavours, cooking techniques and working with what we have. That’s how I like to approach it. For restaurants people like to box it in, while my background is French training but I use a lot of Japanese ingredients.
That will have them saying it’s a French and Japanese restaurant but really it is whatever we want it to be,” Mitchell explained. “The experience was great! I’m a chef’s chef, I just love being around food and cooking. It was awesome that I got to share a kitchen with the team here and be able to share what we do with more people.
A takeaway from this night for me is to let the ingredients tell you what to do with them,” Mitchell added. The evening got a kick-start from Worthy Park Rum cocktails and wines from CPJ including the Beach Park, Herbal Tonic, La Gioiosa Prosecco and Minuty M Rosé. Hors d’oeuvres included crab salad, oysters, poached shrimp, roasted plantain arancini and crispy goat cheese.
The three-course dinner menu comprised of marinated tuna, grilled snapper and roasted beef short ribs and pineapple cheesecake. Rockhouse Foundation board member Peter Rose spoke on the success the foundation has enjoyed from its efforts. “The Rockhouse Foundation’s primary project is the expansion of the Savanna-la-Mar Inclusive Academy.
We’re now six years in existence with this project. We started with 30, three-year-olds and now we have 225 students up to the Grade 4 level and we’re on our way to age three to high school over the next seven years. It’s a one-of-a-kind school in Jamaica working with children with and without disabilities and the progress that we’re seeing is extraordinary, and this is all possible from this and our other events as well as the generosity of the Ministry of Education,” Rose stated.
— Photos & Text: Aceion Cunningham.
