Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mondrekio Robertson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Mondrekio, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?
This story is pretty insane, because my first client was a celebrity and I was so afraid. Also looking back if would be super afraid now and I don’t know if I would actually do the job lol. I can’t name the person because of an NDA, but they are a famous singer and I honestly just stumbled upon the job. I was in culinary school and working 2 jobs, one of which was a catering job for Bold American Catering in Atlanta, GA. I did an even at the world of coke and the clients manager was at the event. They needed someone to work a private party for 20 people and my company didn’t have an opening I guess. They were just talking about it while I was running a hot station that night (I was on a station that was making pasta to order). I don’t know what came over me, but I volunteered lol and got the job. I got a couple buddies from culinary school to work it with me and we just honestly winged it lol. This was my first check as a personal chef in 2011, but it wasn’t until later in 2015 that I started my business because I didn’t think it was a concept that the average person would want. So my first big break was a blessing and a curse because I got paid a lot, but later found out that wasn’t what I could just charge off the back lol. Also it was nerve wrecking because I couldn’t tell people I did it so that was something I learned later about leading with passion and not ego. The person I am today knows that I could cook for Obama and if he loves it and it changes his mood I wouldn’t care who knows if cooked for him. At the age I was super ego driven and the idea of signing NDA’s really affected me and what I thought was important. Although now I look back and it’s honestly one of the most exciting things I’ve done to date lol. After that my first official client that I can publicly name is one of my good friends Alyssa Garrett, who is a realtor in Atlanta and we grew up together. She trusted me when nobody had a reason to trust me to be a personal chef and I will never forget it.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m Mondrekio, but most people call me Drake and in culinary school I adopted the name Hollywood. I have a personal chef business called “Chef Hollywood’s Culinary Creations” and I am a traveling personal chef. I’ve been cooking since I can remember and I’ve always loved it since I was a child, mostly because my moms didn’t like to cook lol. I didn’t see it as a career though so I went to college pursuing computer science at first, until I got deep into it and realized I hated it lol. I decided to take a leap of faith and go to culinary school and the rest is history. One thing I always wanted to do in life was traveling and I graduated The Art Institute of Atlanta with my Culinary degree and got a job at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Atlanta right off the back. I was so excited, because something on my bucket list was already checked off. My manager at the time though saw that I really wanted to see the world and he is who got me into working on cruise ships and traveling. In my business I specialize in culinary experiences that you wouldn’t get anywhere else. I provide couples dinners, brunches, private events, online classes, and restaurant consultations and I have a podcast on my ofttimes lol. I also run double duty as an owner of my business and a contract chef to other companies. This allows me to travel and also do something I love which is work on the water when I want to. To any potential client or follower that reads about me for the first time I would like to say that my love food itself is what I bring to the table the most, My goal is to always be the best me possible and I want to bring that to each plate I ever put out. My style of cooking is global comfort, meaning that I love learning and visiting places around the world and making food that comforts you while being inspired from all of those places.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The lesson that I had to unlearn was that talent is all that you need to succeed in life. Being a chef means that you have to treat food as a medium because this is an art form. There have been many times in my career that I made better food or just did the entire meal while my boss got the credit for it. For those who don’t know, most of the time when you love a famous chef’s food and go to their restaurant, there was probably a pastry chef or sous chef that executed that entire menu. I was taught that if you just work hard then you will be rewarded, but quickly I changed that mindset when I got into the industry. The general public likes a face of a product, meaning that if I work for a Thomas Keller it will never matter what I accomplish because you will only think of him when products come out. One of the leading factors of me branching out on my own was that I was tired of being the person who created and executed amazing menus and nobody ever knew and I never was compensated for it either. The last straw for me was in 2015 when I created my business I was working at a restaurant where I created 4 recipes and the owner quickly put his name on it and I saw how fast my input was muted.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
My story of pivoting is probably super similar to most of you, because it happened in 2020. I worked on big cruise ships for about 3 years prior to 2020 as an America’s Test Kitchen Host for Holland America Cruise Lines doing live cooking shows. Our contracts were cut with HAL because of issues in the Seattle Office out of our controls as hosts so I knew my time on the sea was coming to an end. I reinvested into my business at the end of 2019 and was ready to ramp up Chef Hollywood’s Culinary Creations, but the world had a different idea for me. the start of the year for 2020 was amazing, I landed a Food Network show and also new clients who wanted me to travel with them, but in April the world stopped. I was super depressed and kind of just defeated because I put my money into something that couldn’t work at the time. Nobody wanted a chef in their house when we were supposed to be on a lockdown as a country. This was actually a blessing though because I started my podcast “Cooking Your Way Through Life” and also started doing online classes with my friend Chef Leen out of New York. These two endeavors brought and still bring me so much joy, but I would not have approved either without that push from Covid honestly. This is why I truly feel like we can’t grow unless we make ourselves do something uncomfortable every now and then.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chculinarycreations.com/contact/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefhollywood88/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chefhollywood88
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chculinarycreations/
- Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chculinarycreations/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQywIe__jajrNDb_Prqfhgg
- Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/U9KVlg7D6sEMOtPtshJXiQ
- Other: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fchefhollywood88.onuniverse.com%2F&e=AT1pXjSYimXnzyERIR-mcXv90dLro8FhZ7XSYbPv4hMXZkrn-_58lN2nTsGGIhhGLrdong-BanxrG9v_GLfmQLXuPKYVwdfT5mehNw9cezCKkZyM8P7C