5 courses, 1 divine dining experience - Chef Conroy Arnold fires up dynamic tasting experience at St Mary eatery

Tables are set, and meals are ready to be curated at one of the north coast’s hottest culinary destinations. Diners are guaranteed maximum pleasure at 511 Conroy’s Plate, and its guiding hand, restaurateur Conroy Arnold, would have it no other way.
“It was always a dream to have my own restaurant where I can focus on certain types of food that I like, but most notably what other people enjoy,” Executive Chef Conroy Arnold divulged about his nearly year-old eatery in Oracabessa, St Mary. Reservations are strongly recommended here, and an eclectic, five-course tasting menu — the distinguishing element Arnold masterminded — is executed based entirely on customers’ specified food preferences.
Located five minutes away from the luxe GoldenEye resort, where Arnold was once culinary lead for the resort’s reopening 12 years ago, the chef’s new establishment features al fresco dining in a quaint space with tropical and kitschy decor flourishes. From Kingston, it’s an almost two-hour drive, should the Junction route into St Mary be taken. Shave 45 minutes from that journey time to Conroy’s if the North-South leg of Highway 2000 is used. Either way, the trip is absolutely worth taking for couples and groups to expand and delight their gastronomic sensibilities, whether travelling from the capital city or elsewhere on the island.
“In terms of the menu concept, I chose five courses because it went along with the idea of five-in-one (cue the restaurant’s name),” he told Food on a visit last week that came on the heels of an invitation to taste and talk. His decades-long fine dining background solidified the practical decision. “What I realised over the years is that people have a soup, a salad, an appetiser, an entree, and dessert, so I feel that allows me to mix it up and engage in a lot of the culinary [spaces] that I have worked [in] over the years. So it is basically bringing together everything I have learnt.
What’s unique for his multi-ethnic brand, according to the Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, “is that I am paying attention to the voices of my customers on what type of food they want to eat”. With consultations on food preferences ironed out ahead of finalising the five-course selection, Arnold noted that his skill set “has a composition of different experiences and chefs I have learnt from. So I am tapping into Asian, French and American but gravitating it all towards Jamaican cuisine.”
For the lunchtime invitational menu tasting, Arnold — whose sporadic speech impediment led him to adopt the moniker ‘Stuttering Chef’ — presented Food with a showcase of fantastically flavoured, beautifully styled plates of seafood and beef dishes, one after another. His opening salvo came with shrimp dumplings simmered in a seafood Alfredo sauce. It set the tone for his deft mixing of familiar island savouriness with international nods to the Far East and the Old World. Servings at 511 Conroy’s Plate forgo heavy portions. This, as there are multiple courses to cut into, and forkfuls and spoonfuls to savour. Next from the kitchen: ramgoat ravioli. Arnold’s genius take elevated the profile of a traditional Jamaican curried meat to not just being stuffed pasta, but perfectly ‘moreish’ with each chew. Oven-roasted salmon followed on a bed of arugula and topped with a subtly spicy-sweet tomato salsa. Then, there was the chef’s slow-braised beef short ribs – marinated overnight and cooked to perfection – and served with kimchi (Korean-style salted spicy cabbage). 
The reception for 511 Conroy’s Plate has, to date, been favourable. Arnold said there is a balance of locals — many acquainted with him from his nine-year tenure as executive chef at Hermosa Cove in Ocho Rios, which he left a year ago — and visitors to the island. “I am happy with the current direction. It’s a project of patience and trying to tap into what works and what doesn’t. It’s listening to the universe and, so far, so good.” The novelty of the open-dining service is one he believes enhances the communal experience around the table. “I always approach my guests to ask what they like and, from there, I add my own twists and turns,” explained Arnold, son of a housekeeper mother and carpenter father, who was raised in Wait-A-Bit, Trelawny. He migrated in 1983 as a child to the United States, living in the Empire State for 25 years before returning home. “What you find is that, when people go to restaurants, they don’t often see what they want and would prefer something special. As a chef, one should be able to zone in on what guests want and provide that. It’s what I do,” shared the self-professed ‘country boy’.
A graduate of State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase with a political science degree, Arnold redirected his career path towards the culinary industry, as he was exceedingly conscious of his stuttering. “It was a strange thing when I was an undergrad at SUNY, we used to just cook a lot, and my friends would say, ‘You don’t have to talk a lot when you cook’. We used to do jerk chicken in the dorms, hang out and just cook, and I went for it. I didn’t know that being in the kitchen around great chefs would create a discipline to help me to just keep going.” During his culinary career in New York, the Jamerican made the rounds in the kitchen at renowned establishments the likes of Nobu and The Tonic.
Reminiscing about his era in such Big Apple kitchens, he told Food, “The only thing I learnt in a good kitchen is that you have to say ‘Yes, chef’ and ‘No, chef’. The chefs would just scream at you. A lot of what I experienced was through fear. My father was a rum head, so that created fear. I felt like I needed an outlet, so cooking became that outlet for me. It’s a weird thing, we don’t know where we are going to reach in life, we just have to travel the road. So it was not a matter of me believing cooking would help me, and it did. It’s something I enjoyed doing; most other things were boring to me.”
Now the boss of his own business, he is keen on maintaining a throughline to Jamaican taste in the plates he sends out of his kitchen at 511. “Seventy-five per cent of the ingredients I use are local. I go to the Ocho Rios market to find the produce and meats,” explained the chef, who currently has two members of staff on his payroll, a cook and front-of-house waiter who doubles as the mixologist. “A lot of what I do is locally driven, and that’s what makes it exciting. In terms of ethnic cuisine involved, there’s Scotch bonnet, thyme, scallion, the seasonings are the foundation for the type of food that I do,” he added. Part of his business model is a soon-to-be-operational ice cream truck. “I will be working on five different flavours that will be lactose-free: vanilla, chocolate, Jamaican cocoa, rum and raisin and the traditional grapenut,” he disclosed.
Down the line, his greatest hope is “to turn Conroy’s Plate into a bed and breakfast inn, that has always been my [dream]. How am I going to get there? It’s working with the universe and highlighting the journey of where things need to be.”

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com