Oceana Restaurant’s Executive Chef Joseph Chaves hails from the Azores Islands in Portugal. His earliest culinary memory is sprinkling sugar over aromatic, freshly baked bread from his mother’s oven on the island of Santa Maria. Chaves’ first restaurant job was at The Villa Capri in Cambridge, MA, at the age of 14, where he prepared salads and antipasto.
Since 1999, Chaves has served as Oceana’s Executive Chef at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel. Oceana, which seats 200 diners, is a “retro contemporary” seafood and grillroom establishment, with décor reminiscent of an elegant cruise ship and a panoramic view of Boston Harbor.
During 2001-02, Chef Chaves oversaw the redesign of the Oceana menu. The reopening of the restaurant Oceana in mid-April 2002 marks the completion of the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel’s $11.5 million renovation.
Chaves has worked as a chef for various Marriott hotel properties since 1990. He was sous chef and banquet chef at the Hartford Marriott in Farmington, Connecticut, executive sous chef at the Boston Marriott Copley Place in Massachusetts, and executive chef at the Marriott hotel in Newton, Massachusetts, before arriving at his current position at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf in 1999. Prior to 1990, Chef Chaves served in similar positions at the Montauk Yacht Club & Inn in New York, and the Dawn Beach Hotel & Resort on the Caribbean island of St. Martin.
Currently, Chef Chaves is enrolled in a Culinary Arts continuing education program at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. He is a certified chef de cuisine as well as a certified executive chef within the American Culinary Federation, of which he has been a member since 1998. Chaves is also a member of the Boston Epicurean Club and James Beard Foundation.