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They call him the Champagne Chef because of his bubbly personality but Keith Jones is a world renowned master chef. He says he is a culinary ambassador to the world and has served up culinary delights on TV, in books, and in the classroom. For the last week and a half he’s been doing just that in Belize. He spent the last ten days or so on the islands of Caye Caulker and San Pedro shooting 5 episodes for a new show “Taste of belize” which will air next year on the Colours Network. He leaves Belize tomorrow and we spoke to him this evening.

Keith Swift,
“Why do they call you the Champagne Chef?”

Chef Keith Jones,
“It is because of my bubbly and effervescent personality. Can you tell?

I wouldn’t call myself a master chef because just like every other thing you learn something everyday. You learn something new everyday so I am a student, I call myself a food student.

I was fortunate enough to be contacted by Ari-Lew productions in terms of starting off this venture and they contacted me and kind of gave me a sketch or a framework and said this is what we want to do, this is how we want to highlight the show.”

D.J. Alemayehu, Ari-Lew Productions
“The show is called ‘Taste of Belize’ and we will try and market it in the States and we have a distribution agreement for the Dish Network on Colours TV. We are fortunate enough to have Keith work with us. Keith is a very unique individual. He actually travels the world and does indigenous dishes and so we are fortunate to have him here in Belize. We have Ari-Lew Productions registered here in Belize so it is a Belizean company and we shot Taste of Belize in five different venues in the cayes. So we will be airing that sometime in February in the States.”

Keith Swift,
“So how did you enjoy Belize?”

Chef Keith Jones,
“Like I said it was fantastic. I didn’t know that much about the country but the whole multicultural aspect, we had some locals on the film crew and I got to spend some time with them outside of the working environment and man just beautiful people. And that Garifuna celebration, amazing. The pride of the people, it came through and the drums are still beating man so I can say a excellent time and I look forward to finding out more.”

Next year Chef Keith plans to return to Belize to shoot additional shows in other parts of the country. The shows will air in February on the Colours Network which reaches about 20 million viewers. The producers plan to air the show locally. Those producers are from the “Ari-Lew” Production Company which is based in Belize.