When Chef Otis Monroe heard he won the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Region Chef of the Year Award from Chartwells’ Be-A-Star program, he was “at first shocked and then, in the best word, very humble,” he said. He had to be nominated for the award, “so it felt kind of good.”
Director of Dining Services Don Stanwick said, “He [Monroe] is very engaging with the students. He gets to know quite a few of the students by name. He kind of knows their eating habits and if they have allergies. Just that personal engagement, I think, sticks him above a lot of other chefs… Outside of that, he makes a really, really good mac and cheese too.”
Monroe is from Pondtown and has worked at WC for about 20 years. He is one of the two sous chefs who specifically takes care of logistics, “so I take care of meals and stuff for the students,” he said.
When Monroe was in high school he worked at the WC dining hall for about three years before he went to military school for the Navy. He was stationed in Pearl Harbor on the destroyer USS Leftwich during the Gulf War. “Its job is a submarine hunter,” he said. “The best way to look at it is you have the Secret Service—they’re supposed to take a bullet for the president. Well, we’re supposed to take missiles for the carriers.” Working aboard the destroyer, he said, “It makes you become a man a little sooner than later… At 18, I found myself in charge of a flight deck.” His job was landing and securing helicopters.
Monroe traveled to many places while serving in the Navy including Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Gulf Region, including Iraq. He also did one tour to South America and got to sail past the equator for a ceremony.
“I always enjoyed the food and travel and making friends,” he said. “Even though… it was wartime for us, a lot of places we went we got a lot of respect and a lot of good food… and I was always thankful for that.”