Richard Nana Yaw Oduro was not always a chef. He arrived at the University of Ghana with a sharp mind trained on numbers — reading Economics and Mathematics, learning to see patterns in things most people overlook. What he did not expect was that the most compelling pattern he would ever find was on a plate.
The shift from economics to culinary was not a departure — it was a translation. The same discipline that dissects markets and equations now governs how flavour is built, how a kitchen runs, and how a dish earns its place on the menu. Every recipe is a problem with a solution. Every service is a system that either works or doesn't. Richard understood this instinctively, and it gave him an edge that no culinary school can teach.
I left the lecture hall, but I never stopped studying. The kitchen just became my classroom.
— Richard Nana Yaw Oduro, Head Chef & Founder, TasteXXSee
His passion for food grew into something he could no longer contain alongside spreadsheets and theory. So he chose the kitchen — fully, deliberately, without looking back. He immersed himself in Ghanaian culinary tradition: the slow patience of banku, the smoky ceremony of jollof, the bold confidence of pepper sauces that take hours to become what they are. Then he looked outward — to the wok techniques of East Asia, the aromatics of Thai cooking, the precision of noodle craft — and brought those worlds into conversation with the one he already knew.
TasteXXSee is the result of that conversation. As head chef, Richard oversees every dish that leaves the kitchen — not as a manager, but as a craftsman. The menu is not a compromise between two cuisines; it is a coherent vision from a single mind that refuses to be limited by borders. Whether you are eating his Thai Fried Rice with Shrimps or a bowl of Banku with Tilapia, you are eating something Richard has thought about carefully, cooked with intention, and sent out with pride.
