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I
n addition, he is very grateful to his father
who made him his apprentice when he was a
teenager and who taught him a great number
of things. First of all in the field of construction.
When Leslie Martina was barely an adult he
had already mastered a lot of skills. Plumbing,
electricity and masonry hold no secrets for him.
He has even been a carpenter and a tiler and has
installed metal roofs! However, the devaluation
of the guilder in relation the American dollar
in the mid 1980s forced him to leave Sint Maarten
for economic reasons and head to Holland.
On arriving there he took various jobs, including
as a waiter and a cleaner in a hotel to pay for
his studies, which were costly! He enrolled in
a prestigious hotel school where, for several
years, he trained to become a chef. Not satisfied
with acing his diploma, he went on to study
management, in particular hotel management,
human resource management, labor law and
marketing! At the same time he became an
instructor and taught cooking to younger
students. He remained almost 15 years in Holland
where he had a distinguished career.
In the late 90s, he returned to Sint-Maarten
where he immediately found work. Among other
posts he was restaurant manager, then night
manager, for a large resort complex on the
Dutch side. The years went by. He had worked
exclusively in luxury establishments when he
lived in Europe but he was aware that now he
would have to lower his sights and work in more
modest restaurants. However, he did not see
that as a problem at all, as one of Leslie’s
essential qualities is modesty! The most
important thing for him was to find work.
After hurricane Lenny had swept through and
completely devastated the restaurant where
he worked, he decided to renovate it entirely,
putting to good use the knowledge he had gained
in his construction years. All those around him
were enthralled, as no one in Sint Maarten had
ever seen a better-designed kitchen. It’s true
that it’s a rare breed of chef who is also a
building developer and an interior designer!
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