Growing Up on a Farm Helped Chef Everton Clarke Appreciate Locally Grown Seasonal Ingredients at San Jose Restaurant

When you are born and raised on a farm that produces a variety of proteins, root vegetables, and fruit, you become accustomed to enjoying food at its very best. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that as a chef, Everton Clarke has been subconsciously imprinted to access the best regional ingredients he can find wherever his job may take him. Currently, he has just taken up residence at the San Jose Marriott restaurant in downtown San Jose as Executive Chef.

Chef Clarke was born in Jamaica and grew up on a family farm where they raised chickens, goats, and pigs as well as a variety of produce including carrots, turnips, yucca, other root vegetables, and plenty of tropical fruit. He watched his mother utilize all of these ingredients on a daily basis in the meals she prepared, and he was not shy to get in there and get his hands in whatever she was cooking.

This early imprinting clearly had an impact on his choice of a career, for when the time came, Chef Clarke decided to go to culinary school and received a Bachelor of Science in Food Service Management from Johnson and Wales University. Since then, he has spent more than 15 years as a chef with Marriott Hotels & Resorts.

And no matter where he cooks in the Marriott Hotels & Resorts restaurant family -- Chef Clarke has worked at numerous Marriott properties including the Philadelphia Marriott, Harbor Beach Marriott Resort & Spa (Florida), San Francisco Downtown Marriott, and JW Desert Springs Marriott -- he incorporates regionally sourced ingredients that are in season into his menus. Now that he is at the San Jose hotel, he has sourced regionally available Colorado Lamb, Corona Beans, Black Cod from Hawaii, and clams from British Columbia.

Chef Clarke, who is father to two girls who prefer to eat rather than cook right now, does not believe in eating processed foods and cooks at least three to four times a week at home for his family. His preferences? Meats that are closer to the bone like braised oxtail, pot roast, short ribs, liver, tongue -- things he can slow cook with potatoes and other root vegetables. And yes, his kids eat it all.

Chef Clarke finds his inspiration for his restaurants from reading cookbooks and watching the Food Network and most other cooking shows. He also sees the trend in science playing a greater role in cuisine with things like micro gastronomy, molecular biology, and sous vide (a cooking process that is intended to maintain the integrity of ingredients by heating them for an extended period at relatively low temperatures using airtight plastic bags placed in hot water well below boiling point; usually around 60°C or 140°F) soon playing a mainstream role in cooking. 

For the present time, Chef Clarke has been impressing diners at Arcadia and Tanq at the San Jose Marriott restaurant near San Jose State University with a variety of new dishes including Pan Seared Black Cod with Savory Baynes Clams, Tomato, Fennel, Fingerling Potatoes, and Limoncello Nage; Grilled Colorado Lamb with Corona Bean and Asparagus Cassoulet, Port Macerated Currants, and Mint Oil; Grilled Kurobuta Pork Chops; and a Local Artisan Cheese Selection.


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