Even though Mesha Tarun is only 22 years old, she has already established a reputation for her sophisticated cuisine.

Ms. Tarun prepares haute cuisine dishes for affluent patrons, including sell-out supper clubs and exclusive pop-up dinners at upscale venues like the Capital Club in Nairobi and Lake House Tigoni.

Ms. Tarun charges upwards of Sh10,000 for a seven to ten-course meal she prepares, although prior to 2018, she had never prepared a meal.

“The fine dining food scene in Kenya is growing. People are enjoying it, and I want to be part of that upward scene,” she says.

“I didn’t even know how to hold a knife or fry an egg,” says Ms Tarun, who was born in the UK and grew up in Italy and Kenya.

The chef identifies as a technical person who enjoys construction. She enrolled at the University of Nairobi to study petroleum engineering after finishing high school. She completed a nine-month internship at the Tribe Hotel in 2018 to pass the time before the reporting deadline.

“I did housekeeping and front office, but I wasn’t very good. Then I ended up in the kitchen.”

She had discovered her life’s work, but it wasn’t simple to begin her career as a chef. She was given tasks like slicing vegetables, scrubbing dishes, and peeling 30 kilograms of potatoes because she was the least senior member of the group.

“But I was quite inquisitive about learning cooking techniques and new things,” she says.

She would frequently wander throughout the kitchen, much to the head chef’s annoyance, looking at interesting things.

She nevertheless gained knowledge of general information, cooking techniques, knife skills, cooking styles, other cuisines, and plating.

“Three months into the Tribe Hotel experience, I told my mum, a lawyer, that I didn’t want to do engineering,” says Ms Tarun.

“She didn’t take that too well at first but eventually grew into it.”