By Sara Perez Webber
Black-and-white photos of the beach line the walls of Mary Rohan’s office at Bill Hansen Catering in Miami. They’re a calm counterpoint to the constant motion outside the door—and a clue to the flavor point-of-view she brings to one of the city’s busiest catering operations: Caribbean-inspired cooking with a global lens.
“I love all the islands,” says Rohan, senior executive chef. A native of Miami who lived in the Bahamas for two years while cooking aboard a 50-foot trimaran, Rohan says her favorite dishes to make are Caribbean-inspired, including brown stew chicken and snapper escabeche.
From a Mall Food Court to Le Cordon Bleu in London
It all started when she was 10 years old, trying to impress her older brother’s friend by making a Cuban staple—pork, black beans and rice. She didn’t realize the beans had to be soaked first. Hours later, the pork was bone-dry and the beans still hard, but her crush ate every bite and told her how wonderful it was. A future chef was born.
By 14, Rohan was already working kitchen jobs—starting in a mall food court—learning what it takes to keep pace in a real service environment. She later headed overseas to study at Le Cordon Bleu in London, drawn by a desire to understand technique and tradition. “I wanted to learn where everything came from and how it originated,” she says.
That education led to an executive chef position at a quaint, ancient inn in the Cotswolds. The work sharpened her instincts for ingredient-driven cooking and disciplined prep. “I would go to the fishmonger and the cheese shop and the butcher, and pick out all the ingredients for the daily menu,” she recalls.
Back in the States, Rohan refined her signature style—infusing dishes with Asian-Caribbean flavors—at restaurants and hotels throughout Florida, including Miami, Destin and Islamorada.
Creating Multicultural Menus
That global perspective has served Rohan well in multicultural Miami, where she thrives on challenges like creating a fusion wedding menu for a couple who wanted to showcase their Haitian and Ethiopian backgrounds.
Today, Rohan oversees all culinary operations for the company’s four catering brands—Bill Hansen Catering, Alexander Event Catering, Lovables Catering & Kitchen, and Eten Catering—each serving different price points and event styles. With a kitchen staff of 40, her job is as much operational as it is creative: holding quality standards steady, training teams and ensuring the right level of cuisine meets the moment—no matter the brand.
“It’s different tiers of cuisine,” she notes, “so it’s always a challenge to pull yourself back and say, ‘Wait, no, I have to go up a notch’—or down a notch.”
And the pressure can be intense. CFE News spoke to Rohan the week before Miami’s Art Basel, one of the city’s highest-demand periods, when she was mapping out staffing and production schedules for seven events in rapid succession. She needed to cover three breakfasts for 1,000 guests and then transition the team for the evening affairs.
Yet even with careful preparation, Rohan knows all too well the potential pitfalls of off-premise catering. Early in her tenure at Bill Hansen Catering, the team realized a corporate event didn’t have enough of the chicken entrée to go around. “The corporate chef was opening up the hot boxes and they were all empty,” she recalls. Rohan jumped in the car, raced to the grocery store, and juggled eight rotisserie chickens to the checkout line: “I didn’t even get a cart!” Minutes later, she was back, directing the staff to carve and serve immediately. The guests never even noticed.
Moments like that—handled quietly under pressure—have shaped how Rohan leads her kitchen. “Creating a positive environment is so important because it’s so stressful,” she emphasizes.
Boosting Morale in the Kitchen
To add levity to the day-to-day, Rohan brings in games to play at lunchtime and has handed out tiny chicken slingshots for staff to horse around with between tasks. “You put them on your finger and you sling them at somebody, just to take the pressure off,” she says. “I try to make it light and bring in positivity.”
You could say Rohan’s peaceful beach photos mirror how she runs her kitchen—meeting every incoming wave with calm and craft, helping the team to successfully ride the swell.
