Syrian chefs quickly land jobs at Saint John restaurant

Ehab Radwan opened the Taste of Egypt restaurantin Saint John more than four years ago and Radwansays it has been impossible to find another chef to help him in the kitchen.

"I am working all the time from opening to closing," he said.

But sinceDecember, Radwanhas hired two Syrian chefs who have arrived in Saint John as refugees.

• Syrian refugees greeted with video pointing out province's virtues

• New Brunswick is 'crying out' for Syrian refugees, John McCallum says

• For Syrian refugees, finding job should take back seat to learning English, say agencies

"I have been trying for three years to get in a chef from Egypt andI had a difficult time with thatand I kept contacting the YMCA I told them if you have any immigrant people or refugeesthatworked before in a kitchen just let me know."

Radwan says one of the new chefs has already been with him for more than a month and the other will start this week.

"I'm hoping ... after they are well-trained and they pick a little bit of English they can replace me so I can start to enjoy my life a little bit."

Radwan has already taught his first new hire the entire menu and now is concentrating on teaching him the language so he can communicate with servers.

"I'm just trying to train him what's the name of all of this stuff in English," he laughed.

Mediterranean chefs needed

"Nobodycan imagine what they suffer during the war there. And I hear stories from them, like it's unbelievable," Radwan said.

He has heard the suggestion that Syrian refugees will "take jobs from Canadians" but he rejects that notion.

"Not correct," he said. " Since day one I am hiring a lot of Canadians,a lot of chefs, and they speak English and studied culinary arts and I have a hard time to find the one whocan fit my cuisine."

Radwan says Canadian chefs are comfortable cooking steaks and fries but are lost when it comes to Mediterranean cuisine.

"We do everything from scratch and that's a lot of work plus you have to know what you're doing. They don't have any idea how to cook kebabs, what itlooks like so they feel bad, they feel sad, so they couldn't stay with me that long."

Radwan says as soon as the refugees arriving have a grasp of English he expects they will start businesses of their own and be successful in New Brunswick.

Immigration Minister John McCallumhas said Premier Brian Gallant is asking for more refugees, sayingNew Brunswick has jobs for them in areas such as fish processing.