From an early age, his passion for great food took him deeply into the world of fine cooking, and his willingness to discover new flavors from around the world made him find his culinary identity at the age of 18, when he first attended school to become a chef.
Born In Venezuela in 1988, James was the first one from his family to be born outside of Syria, his parents’ home country. He grew up with a heavy and distinct Syrian background, which exposed him to a cuisine and customs that developed in him a very demanding palate in the search of great food.
At the age of 16, right out of high school, James decided to go to college and study chemistry in order to become a dentist. At the same time, he started working on radio and television as a talent and also as a spokesperson for different brands and products. After two years, he started exploring the entrepreneurship and investments world and found his passion for the art of cooking by attending the prestigious “Le Cordon Bleu School of Culinary Arts”. He made the Dean’s Honor List by graduating as one of the three top students of his class.
At “Le Cordon Bleu”, he not only found how attractive the culinary world was, but also decided to use his talent and knowledge in television, as it was one of his dreams.
His charismatic and enthusiastic personality gave him many opportunities in the field, some of them, working as a private chef, and others teaching at home, small groups of mom that wanted to learn how to cook.
At the age of 19, James opened his own catering company called “Avokado Catering.” He also worked for “Arabian “Nights”, a Mediterranean restaurant in Miami where he gained hands on experience managing a kitchen.
James identifies his cooking style as Modern International.
After almost 6 years working with different brands and products on radio and television, James saw an opportunity to grow as a television talent and decided to respond to an open-call audition for Telemundo’s morning show “¡Levantate!” (Nowadays “Un Nuevo Dia”) were he was chosen as the official chef of the show and the network.
His charismatic personality and huge smile took him not only to the hearts and soul of the viewrs in the U.S. but to all latin america, by march 2012 James was selected by Utilisima to be one of their newest faces on their hit T.V. show “Puro Chef”.
Today James takes the best ingridients of his recepies and his personality, to cook exceptional dishes on an easy way for millions of families all over Latin America.