DC-based Guyanese chef using virtual classes to teach culinary skills
Putting a delicate, final touch
Putting a delicate, final touch

WHAT started out as a playful live post on Instagram every Saturday night during quarantine, turned into an opportunity for Kashif John Browne — the Guyanese chef who once made his way into the White House — to teach his culinary skills to fellow Guyanese and people from across the world.
People enjoyed looking at Browne so much that many of them started demanding that he begin classes; the more posts he made, the more people reached out, and this drove him to start a culinary class on Zoom.

Within a relatively short time in the culinary industry, Browne has already enjoyed a rewarding stint at the White House

And the chef liked nothing better as he now got a chance to connect with the Guyanese people; so that even though he’s not in his home country, he feels like he’s able to give back to the country through these virtual sessions.

With his long-term goal of opening a culinary school and restaurant here, these classes provide a preview of what this is going to be like. “I am far past the ideas for this. I am now documenting everything and looking at locations and things like that. I am very far ahead from where I need to be,” Browne expressed in an interview with Pepperpot Magazine.

“I’ve always wanted to give back to Guyana my home country, in some way, at some point. As I continue my journey on the culinary path, I have managed to start doing so virtually, by teaching cooking classes to my fellow Guyanese and also many other persons…In the future, I am definitely planning to have a physical location where I am not only able to showcase my talent, but also share my wealth of knowledge and skills [with] persons who would like to expand their culinary horizons,” he explained.

Born and raised at Carmichael Street, Georgetown, the 30-year-old chef left Guyana in 2008 with his mother Ruth Chan and once he got to the United States of America, he began pursuing culinary arts, although this was not initially his intention.
As he went through school at St. Margaret’s Primary and The Bishop’s High, he had always leaned towards the medical field and wanted to become a doctor, but as time went by, he ended up doing business.

Browne dropped his business studies to pursue a career in culinary arts

He later realised that cooking had always been in the family. “My mom was a wonderful cook and my sisters and brothers all cooked, so it was something in the household that everyone did,” he expressed.
While abroad, he spent a lot of time with his sister Alicia Stewart who was working at a New York restaurant called The Mercer Kitchen. “Whenever I visited her we would always cook and compete just for the fun of it. She was the one who really took me under her wings and gave me the guidance and training I needed; then is when I decided it was what I wanted to do,” he reflected.

So a week before he started his business studies, he cancelled everything and went to culinary school. “I ended up meeting my aunt’s friend who asked me randomly one day how I would feel if I got the opportunity to work at the White House. It took a few weeks before he reached out back to me…I got to be a server there and once I got in, I did the rest; made my way to the kitchen, connected with the chef, and she granted me the opportunity to actually cook with her and team,” he said.

From 2013 to 2016, Browne worked part-time before he was eventually offered a full-time position at the White House. “Aside from the talent and the skills set, I think the biggest thing that chef saw in me was the discipline, commitment and determination,” he said.

Chef Kashif John Browne

In 2019, Browne said he parted ways with the White House because he received a great opportunity to become the executive chef at one of the largest catering companies in Washington DC; a position where he currently operates.

“It was another opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” he said, as he noted that his job at the White House became all about the prestige associated with it. “After a while, it just becomes a prestigious job. For me, as a chef, I am on a journey. I want to touch every different part of the culinary industry that I possibly can.”
Browne is married to Guyanese Dr. Sulan Fung and they are parents to two boys.

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