Rio Dsouza

My name is Rio, I'm a 19 year old recent graduate from Dubai College of Tourism and my major was Culinary Arts. I was born and brought up in Dubai and did all of my education here. I have a lot of interest in hot kitchen and pastry kitchen as they both attract me the most.

As I'm a recent college graduate I only have experience as an intern. I did a whole year of internship at Bab Al Qasr, Abu Dhabi. Where I spent 4 months in: Pastry Kitchen, Butchery and Hot Kitchen. During my 4 months in Pastry I handled breakfast buffets and prepared pastries according to the head chef's standards and helped prepare cake bases for events.

In Butchery it was very straightforward I just chopped a lot of poultry, beef and seafood. I also learnt different marination recipes, de-boning and cutting techniques. Finally in Hot Kitchen I spent my last 4 months handling the morning breakfast buffet where I would have to setup the buffet and handle the egg station and sometimes pancake and waffle station.

I would prepare international dishes according to however my chef wanted me to make it. In between all of these sections I also cleaned the walk-in chillers and handled inventory management.

My most relevant education is my major in Culinary Arts which was done in Dubai College of Tourism, where I spent my first year learning all the basic cutting and cooking techniques. Bakery and Pastry techniques included and then my second year where I did the internship to apply all my learning and theory in a real workplace.