From one island to another

Chef Deon’s Caribbean origins take root on Martha’s Vineyard.

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I treasure eating at Deon’s in the VFW Hall in Oak Bluffs. The food is spectacular, and I love the quirky ambiance and unfailingly warm welcome. When I crave something different, Chef Deon Thomas never fails. The Island conch chowder, prime rib, blackened cod, buttermilk fried chicken, BBQ pork ribs, lobster mac and cheese, oxtails, and the Key lime pie are just some of the delicious items on the menu.

We recently had a long conversation, and he recounted his circuitous journey to his VFW home base. Chef Deon spoke about growing up in an extended family in Jamaica, helping to raise vegetables and take care of the farm animals they kept — and being commandeered by the women to help out in the kitchen. “That got me into the kitchen without knowing it,” he remembers. Then in his first year of high school, he opted out of physics, preferring a food and nutrition class. “So I got drawn in early, and never left. I realized it was my calling,” Deon says. He was off to a roaring start, winning first prize for his own recipe for garlic-crusted snapper the next year at the State Fair, which, he says, “made me more passionate about it, and I just wanted to cook.”

Next, Deon enrolled in a food and nutrition course at the Saunders Catering School in Kingston, training in hotels. Suddenly he was immersed in the professional world. He did stints in French, Italian, and Asian kitchens; butcher and pastry shops; bar; and main kitchen, which was Caribbean cuisine with American inflections. Quickly excelling, at just 18 years old he was sous-chef and teaching food and nutrition at the Lister Mair Gilby High School for the Deaf.

At 19, the political situation was heating up in Jamaica, so when hotel agents came looking for young recruits for the U.S., Deon decided to take the leap, and ended up in Montauk on Long Island. There he was thrown into the faster pace of American restaurants and kitchens: “When I came across the pond, we had to step up our game. We didn’t have 50 covers a night, we had 350 covers. Learning how to make those meals and make them tasty in the shortest possible time, that’s a challenge.”

Distinguishing himself, it wasn’t long before an entrepreneurial restaurateur — who was quite the character — poached him to work at his place, which was the opposite of the fine dining at the hotels. Deon explains, “It was a shack, but the concept worked during the summer with people coming off the beach in their [bathing suits] to have a beer and grab food.” After a few seasons of resounding success, the owner, with a great deal of persuasion, convinced Deon to set up a restaurant in the winter in Anguilla in the Caribbean.

When he got down there, he found four walls and nothing more, not even electricity. Deon applied plumbing, electrical, painting, and carpentry skills he had learned in school, building from scratch what became yet another success. He has renovated virtually every location he has ever opened. Referring now to his recent renovations at the VFW, he says, “All that work you see in the restaurant is my life. It’s the fun of the game. The fun is not in the kill, but in the chase.”

For 10 years, Deon split his time — summers in the Hamptons, and winters in Anguilla. One day, and by now he was a partner in the business, Eleanor Pearlson from Tea Lane Associates in Chilmark was eating in the Anguilla restaurant and urged him to open a place here. “My wife and I came on Eleanor’s invitation, and I wouldn’t exchange that for anything,” he says. “She said to me, ‘We need some diversity.’”

Scouting out a location in 2000, he landed in what is now the Chilmark Tavern. “We had fun. It was a new and exciting space as a young Black chef,” he says.

While Deon offered Caribbean food in Chilmark, he opened another location in what is now State Road Restaurant that focused on new American cuisine. Unfortunately, they lost it in a fire in 2007, and decided to give up the lease in Chilmark in 2008. “We really wanted to get a liquor license, so we bought a place on Circuit Avenue,” he says.

They lost that restaurant in early 2012 due to challenges left over from the previous owners. That same year, a horrible hurricane decimated the restaurant in Anguilla, which he had still owned. Chef Deon recalls, “I woke up one morning and had no restaurant in the north and none in the south. So I jumped back as a line cook in New York City just to feed the family, who was here.” The next year, determined to return, Deon catered a Natalie Cole and Smokey Robinson concert at the Tabernacle, after which he started looking for a place to hang his license, which he needed to keep catering.

After many false starts, Deon looked into the VFW. He laughs, “If you had walked in and seen it, you would have walked out and said no.” To meet the board of health requirements, he called five chefs from all over and labored for two weeks straight in the kitchen, which allowed him to start catering.

Two years later, after much work, he was allowed to begin serving dinner there. Dedicated to the community, he has shared his talents, supplying meals to the Red House, the Methodist Church, and until just recently, the food pantry for Island Grown Initiative.

Deon has been cooking scrumptious food for just short of a decade at the VFW. “Because I am a Caribbean person, I moved away from that nouvelle cuisine a bit when I came here,” he explains. “I was the only Caribbean restaurant on the Island, and there was a need for it. But that has changed. The more the merrier, and I’m happy to see that.” Ever eager for a new adventure, he is ready to make changes to the menu, which will include his prizewinning garlic-crusted snapper. He says, “As a chef, I have a creative spirit. I’m going back to the drawing board to see if I can reshuffle my pack. I’m 30 years older … but 30 years wiser. I’m going to explore, make it exciting, and cook from my heart, as I’ve always done.”

Deon’s at the VFW, 14 Towanicut Ave. in Oak Bluffs, 508-627-0330, chefdeon.com.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. Hands down, Deon’s is my favorite place to eat. They serve up a warm welcome and heaping plates of scrumptiousness. Jerk chicken is my default, but everything on the menu and specials board is an adventure worth taking. Many thanks for all the hard work as described in this tasty article.

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