Even with 20 years in the kitchen across three continents, cooking remains a learning experience for Andreas Donnerbauer. Appointed Executive Chef for his second turn at Four Seasons Resort Nevis in summer 2010, Chef Andreas set about soaking up the island’s ever-changing dining scene. “Oh, there’s quite a vibrant cuisine here,” he notes, rhapsodising about breadfruit, tomatoes, lemongrass and, especially, fresh catch. “I’ve been reading up and joining locals at the table and the market. It’s great fun to watch, eat and learn.”

Chef Andreas is devoted to that sort of fun. Arriving for his second stint at Four Seasons Hotel Sydney in 2000, he dove into advanced sushi lessons at the city’s main fish market – something he’d had little exposure to in Europe – and trained with baristas to learn the art of coffee. “I’ve always believed you’ve got to keep your brain clicking and stay on top of culinary trends. Cooking evolves so quickly: I’ve got 200 cookbooks and room for more.”

The chef has an ambitious agenda in Nevis, with Caribbean and Italian restaurants and a steakhouse sizzling across the Resort, including the new Coral Grill that occupies the main dining room. He is also penning a 100 -page culinary training manual, which he hopes to use to teach local talent who are hungry for technique, but have no cooking school on the island.

Raised in Munich, Chef Andreas learned to fend for himself in the kitchen, inspired by the sweetness of peas, the beauty of strawberries and the twang of onions from his grandmother’s garden. By the time he was a teenager he was cooking holiday feasts and entertaining at his parents’ dinner parties. “I set off fire alarms and even sliced off the end of my finger at one point,” he says, maintaining he wasn’t accident prone – just enthusiastic. “It grew back.”

That enthusiasm took Chef Andreas to top-flight hotels, resorts and restaurants and to a Master of Culinary Arts in Germany, an arduous certification program in which he finished in the top 10% of his class. Looking down from that pinnacle, he believes the tide is gradually turning away from the special effects of modern gastronomy and toward food prepared with the freshest ingredients and simple, traditional cooking methods. At least until things evolve again.

Along with his terrestrial duties, Chef Andreas goes deep through the Resort’s acclaimed Dive and Dine Program, a true adventure for certified divers offering the thrill of bagging a spiny lobster during a two-tank plunge beneath crystal-blue Caribbean waves. A certified diver himself with 10 years’ experience, Chef Andreas is right in there with the guests, and he also oversees the private dinner that follows as part of the package. “You get a lot of inspiration for the seafood menu when you swim with the fishes.”

See the Dive and Dine program in action:

• Guest video
• Travel Channel video