Chef Julian Johnson

Born and raised Jamaican, Julian Johnson, “Chef Jewelz” began cooking at the young age of nine. Watching her grandmother and learning by her side, Jewelz fell in love with cooking and began to master the art of traditional Jamaican Food.

She migrated to the United States of America nearly ten years ago and settled in our beautiful state of Vermont, bringing with her proudly her roots and traditions.

Chef Jewelz took no time in finding employment in successful resort environments throughout New England and dominated her culinary positions by working hard and always delivering her best. New England weather can stop some from working. Not Jewelz. She has been known to walk (mind you she’s Jamaican, where it’s warm and NEVER snows) to work when unfortunate, hard time situations required, in the dead of winter, sometimes at night, after working a shift making several hundred dinners. 

Some places you might recognize that Jewelz has worked are for both of Okemo Mountain Ski Resort’s fine dining restaurants; Coleman Brook Tavern and epic., The Bryant House, in the beautiful town of Weston, and The Coonamessett Inn in Cape Cod, MA to name a few. 

The struggles of a single mother, so far away from the kitchen where her grandmother taught her to cook, soon took a few really, really good turns; though not without fight, persistence and constant, exhausting complication. 

In the following years, Jewelz met and married her husband Duane, became a proud home owner here in Vermont, was able to move her family here to Vermont to be with her, became a grandmother, continued to work hard in the restaurant industry while also perusing an interest in mental health and working rehabilitating clients (sometimes working 75+ hours/ week between both jobs and overnighting often at work). 

All the while, Jewelz had a passion. A fire built up from years of time spent in kitchens. She always wanted to start her own little restaurant in order to have people; friends, family and community folks, get a taste of her heritage. Jamaican style cooking, its flavors, her heritage, the history behind her food and the passion she shares for quality, flavor and enjoyment of eating. 

Closely connected to her community, Jewelz began slowly creating a buzz with her culinary skills at local farmers markets and was an instant success.