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I enjoy going behind the scenes in restaurants to see the space, equipment, hard working faces of the chefs and smell the preparation of food…what I have never experienced is going behind the scenes of a 5 star restaurant! But we shouldn’t expect less from Chef Eric Ripert who is also the owner of famous New York city restaurant Le Bernardin.

At the 2012 Cayman Cookout event I spent time with Chef Luis Lujan who cooked us a fantastic meal and along the way provided some valuable tips…

Some of them included….

1. Make sure your meat thaws appropriately and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. When you cook it the meat will be juicer (and not dry out).

2. When you put the meat in a frying pan with oil, place the meat on the side, away from you (so it doesn’t splash on you).

3. Teflon pans are great quality non-stick pans.

4. Presentation is important; tweezers are sometimes better than fingers so use them.

5. Maine/ European and Canadian lobsters have claws and live in colder and denser water so it is sweeter and tender whilst Caribbean lobster uses their tails so the meat is tougher.

Once in a lifetime opportunity to actually go behind the scenes of one of The Ritz Carlton Grand Cayman 5 star restaurants – Blue Restaurant by Eric Ripert. It has been announced that the Cayman Cookout 2013 dates are 17-20 January 2013.

But take a look at this video which highlights our 2012 behind the scenes experience.