Scott Dickson
Chef, m/y Sea Dream

Date interviewed: May 2007

How did you realize you wanted to become a chef?
As a child, all my life, my dad had a simple take-away shop in Scotland.       So I was helping in the kitchen when          I was 11 or 12.

What training did you undergo to become a chef?
I went to catering college for a year and then got offered a job at a good hotel in Scotland. It was traditional, fine dining on a 5,000-acre estate and hunting lodge. We used venison, salmon, white mushrooms, lots of game. All traditional Scottish products. I learned to do pastries, croissants, white bread, brown bread, all our own desserts—and I was still only 19 years old.
     From there, I went to work at Skibo Castle in Scotland, the one where Madonna got married. I was a sous chef, cooking for the stars. 
    Then I spent three years as the head chef at a 12-bedroom hotel in Shropshire with a fine dining restaurant. I was 23 years old then, and I earned two out of three rosettes.
    I wanted to learn more, so I went to work for three different Michelin-star restaurants as a sous chef. I did that for three years. One was a 100-bedroom hotel, one was a nine-bedroom Scottish lodge, and one was a restaurant in England. Then I went back to being a fine dining restaurant chef at hotels.

Why did you decide to work onboard yachts?
I’m 35 years old now, and I’ve done quite a lot in Britain, and I wanted a different challenge.
     I went on vacation to Monaco last year, and some guys there said I could earn a lot of money on yachts. Every hotel restaurant was feeling the same, so I e-mailed some crew agencies.
    I came onboard the 141-foot motoryacht Sea Dream in late April 2007, about a week and a half before the big industry-only charter yacht show in Genoa, Italy. It’s my first yacht.

How will you determine what meals you will prepare for charter guests?
I can do whatever people ask me to do. I know Japanese, French, Italian… and there’s always the Internet if I need to look something up.

What are some of your specialty dishes?
I cook very modern, quite light. I cook classic dishes but try to modernize them, maybe with lighter sauces, less butter, less cream. It’s healthier.
     And my presentation is quite modern. I do a lot of unusual purees, and meat-and-fish combinations like a pan-fried halibut with braised oxtail, or braised pork bellies with seared scallops. I like to do unusual combinations, like lobster and strawberry salad (see photograph above).
     For main courses, I like doing slow-cooked meat. I’ll braise some lamb shanks for about 16 hours, then break that all down with maybe a cabbage bowl and serve it with a rack of lamb.
     A nice dessert combination is chocolate and chili fondant. It adds a little zest, the chili does.
     Then again, if the guest just wants hamburgers, I’ll make that guest the best hamburgers they’ve ever had. It’s my job to make them happy.

What else should CharterWave readers know about you and Sea Dream?
We’re supposed to be going to the Red Sea in November 2007, and then to the Maldives in December and January 2008 before coming back to the Mediterranean for the summer of 2008. So those should be some interesting places to charter.

Sea Dream is part of the fleet at Nigel Burgess. She takes ten guests at a lowest weekly base rate of 126,000 euros, or about $21,000 per person with 25-percent expenses included. Contact any reputable charter broker for information.