ALEXANDRIA DAVIS is not afraid to tell you that she is a picky eater.
In fact, her discerning palate is one of the main reasons she opened PIZZA Squared, offering handmade gourmet pizzas, almost a year ago from her Christ Church home.
“I’ve been a chef, a professional chef for a decade or so and I felt unfulfilled in kitchens where I was just reproducing menus but no getting to create original dishes. Also, being a very picky eater, going out to eat I couldn’t find anywhere to have really outstanding experience.
“I also felt that all the pizza places in Barbados were no longer appealing to me, in a strange way. It was not great food but it would be an okay experience; if you ate it you’re okay but not to say ‘I’ll definitely go back and get this tomorrow’,” Davis told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY.
She is passionate about food and listening to her talk about her experiences over the years, it is easy to see why she offers deep dish and stuffed crust pizzas with different toppings such as chicken alfredo, plantain and bacon and salami deluxe.
Always wanting to own her own company, she said the idea “came from a lot of different places” and despite doing small catering jobs before, she did not want to start a catering company.
“I felt as though everybody has a catering company and I wanted to show that I could specialise in something and do it really well so you would know that anything else you get from me would be as good as this.
“I had starting selling pizzas on Saturdays when I was about 18 or 19 but I wasn’t ready. By that I mean I didn’t understand what it takes and my pizza recipe wasn’t as refined as it is now. My pizza is not just a pizza dough; it is a fusion of a pizza and a flat bread dough. I developed it because I don’t like extremely thick crust. I don’t like the bread type where you get more bread than you get toppings and after experiencing flat bread I thought it was nice . . . . Pizza dough is supposed to be the carrier of the toppings and I didn’t want a plain dough with just flour, water, sugar and yeast,” Davis explained.
She noted that she learnt to cook while standing in a chair watching her grandmother from a distance because she was not allowed in the kitchen. Her grandmother, she said, cooked and baked all kinds of delicious treats and she knew that she wanted to do the same.
Therefore, when the Christ Church Foundation School alumna entered secondary school she knew she had to study food and nutrition. From there she attended Barbados Community College’s Hospitality Institute or the PomMarine Hotel and on her own volition she got internships at restaurants simply because she wanted to learn more and hone her skills.
Following her passion, she worked in the sector with different chefs before leaving.
Over the last year, sales have been steadily increasing with new customers and her regulars. She has also been “consistent with the wow factor”, which is important to her because she wants eating her product to always be an experience.
“I was unemployed when I started it and then I went back into working in a kitchen, which was interesting because I had told myself I wouldn’t go back . . . . The experience was good. It is always good to work with different chefs and get a different outlook.
“When I was starting, it was difficult. There were good weeks and there were bad weeks and I still think they are now . . . . I decided to quit my job in April because I said this is my dream and I need to follow it. There will be good days and bad days and when I did that I actually had a stream of really good weeks where revenue was really coming in, and they were not just regular customers but new ones. There were all good comments”.
Since enrolling in business classes and being exposed to what it takes to operate a business, she is taking the good with the slow periods and sharpening her skills to make it a success.
Presently, Davis is the only employee in the business, but her ultimate aim is to open a few restaurants around the country in strategic locations so everyone can enjoy PIZZA Squared. Eventually, she would like to open “a Bajan restaurant with international techniques to our food which is fine dining”. (GBM)
