Bold Journey, Meet Ali A. Gonzalez

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ali A. Gonzalez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ali A. , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My entire family has this passed on from generation to generation. We have a Doctor, Artist (with a masters), over four law enforcement, and my sister a straight A student from elementary until collage. All my children are collage grads. We all believe that it starts from home and we pass it along by what we do and how we inspire and teach.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a Chef with over 35 years of experience working in Culinary Arts.

Currently, I am building a restaurant in Chicago called Noto66. Keep an eye out for the opening date, aiming for January 2025.

Many would ask why open a restaurant nowadays and what NOTO66 is.

Noto 66 – a sustainable restaurant with a philosophy where we believe in food first.

No processed ingredients, even for the kids. Everything should be house made including broths and stocks which is rarely done anymore.

Too many restaurants have gone to fast casual and we understand the difficulties these days, but our commitment to our customers to provide a better experience without compromising our values. We are building a menu with the freshest ingredients and we will be able to explain exactly where the beef, seafood and vegetables were sourced from.

We do not intend to bag groceries at NOTO66, we believe in a healthy & fresh lifestyle.

Also I own my own food service consulting business called Sustainable Culinary Solutions. I specialize in helping food service businesses implement sustainable practices, while still being profitable.

I have experience developing food service programs for hotels, restaurants, bakeries, movie studios, IT companies, and a Culinary school.

Although my main background is working as a chef with extensive knowledge on cooking and baking, I am also a manager.

The higher up you move as a chef the less you get to see inside a kitchen. Instead you see everything that helps build and maintain the kitchen from the outside. This ranges from accounting, HR, procurement, designing menus, obtaining catering deals, and training staff.

Never a dull day.

But what really drives me everyday is my passion for the culinary arts and seeing it realized in my customer’s appetite.

What I really strive for is a meal that gets people excited. Something that gathers groups of people talking about the experience they just had. Thus bringing over friends, family, coworkers, and business partners.

What is great about food is that it brings people together. I always say that great Ideas start at the table. People just love to talk and talk after having a great meal. Then leading them to having a light bulb moment of inspiration right after.

Another thing I love about food is that it’s cultural. Everything you eat was created from someone who created a dish using ingredients that were available from the surrounding area. Then the dish became popular in the region. Developing a shared interest with that one food item within that community’s culture.

Food is not political nor does it discriminate. So even if people have differences in opinion they can still have a shared interest in the type of food they eat.

I love to create menus with items from different cultures. Each dish has its own story and heritage. I especially love to create the dishes in a way that they were supposed to be made.

I heard countless stories of people saying “This is made just like the way my grandmother used to cook this”

I love hearing that. Then seeing them come back again and knowing my entire staff’s names.

If you feel at home you want to come back to sit back, relax, talk to a friend, and laugh at a joke.

This is what makes all the effort, hard work, and stress worth it.

I am a facilitator of great ideas.

Want to inspire your staff to cook creativity while reliably serving homemade cuisines that customers will talk about for months? Don’t hesitate to contact me through my website at sustainableculinarysolutions.com.

Read the whole interview at https://boldjourney.com/news/meet-ali-a-gonzalez/.

Contact Info:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainableculinarysolutions/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SustainableCulinarySolutions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aligonzalez/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainableCul1
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy32V-owwrtQw2KsRnCpAew
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sustainableculinarysolutions12/