We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Micole Rondinone. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Micole below.

Micole, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I am a lifelong lover of food.

I grew up in the kitchen with my mom, who is an adventurous self-taught home cook with an “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” style — always more focused on flavor than technique. At 3 years old I could be found hovering over the cheese board at my parents’ parties, and by the age of 12, I was dreaming up restaurant menus complete with wine list, scrawled in sparkly pink diaries.

Fast forward to 2019. At 31 years old, I found myself 8 years into a mis-aligned career in the fashion photography industry. I sat across from friends and family that year and told them I’d decided to invest in a passion that was burning somewhere deep inside me. During the day I went to work, and at night attended the French Culinary Institute, cooking my way through an expedited Pre-Professional Culinary program.

Twice a week for three months, I slogged home on whatever subway would take me from Soho to Brooklyn at 10:30 PM. I’ll never forget the sensation of stepping out onto the street, kitchen sweat meeting crisp, cold air. The only sounds coming from the din of restaurants, where a lone diner or two signed their check as the staff turned chairs upside down for the night.

Things unfolded quickly from there…

Just a few months later, in February of 2020, I lost the job that had defined the entirety of my professional career.

The same week I landed a dream gig, working as a sous-chef to a 3x Chopped champion chef, preparing artful multi-course ‘chef’s table’ luxury dinners, in collaboration with Meet Resident.

I was flying out to Miami to sous for another series of private dinners the week the world shut down.

It was March 2020 and I was left fumbling with no business plan, a pile of unemployment paperwork to complete and a vague understanding that I was being given a chance to dream bigger than whatever path I’d just started down.

At this early stage all I knew was that I had a unique perspective on the culinary education space.

Somewhere between professional culinary training and recreational cooking classes for home cooks, was a gaping hole.

My own experience recovering from severely disordered eating and orthorexia had opened my eyes to the reality that most people I knew, women especially, had had a grim experience with food and their body, ranging from mild to extreme. The more conversations I had, the more I realized how this undoubtedly spilled over into peoples’ kitchens.

It took me reaching my own breaking point in 2021 to really get a grasp of how this translated into a business.

Like most people living in a world that centers productivity and success, amidst the chaos of juggling the many demands of my daily life, I had burnt out. Hard.

Even as a passionate, lifetime home cook with a culinary degree and professional kitchen experience, I was still struggling with the extreme highs-and-lows of inconsistently nourishing myself: either I was meal prepping from an overly-stuffed fridge, spending burdensome & tiring hours cooking, or I was working straight through meal time on nothing more than caffeine and a granola bar. Pushing through hanger and brain fog, with a fridge full of nothing, only to find myself on UberEats at 10:00 pm desperately searching for any food that could arrive in 25 minutes or less.

That was when I committed to breaking the mold of the limited options that currently exist in the culinary education space. Through intimate 1:1 sessions I use a combination of meal planning strategy and coaching to create custom cooking plans. Not only do clients leave with simple yet effective solutions for their daily cooking struggles, they receive compassionate guidance to explore their personal, emotional & historical relationship to food, their body and cooking.

Having helped hundreds of clients to cook smarter, not harder, I’ve discovered that yes, having a plan matters — but it only gets you so far. The piece that will unlock longevity and true change is investigating what drives your behaviors.

As a neurodivergent on a lifelong path to healing from cPTSD, disordered eating, anxiety, perfectionism & overachieving, I have made it my mission to build the first ever culinary education platform oriented towards the importance of emotional exploration & inclusive cooking for all brains and all bodies. Because I believe that nourishment should be easily accessible, realistic and sustainable.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Micole, with an ‘M’! I’m a born and raised New Yorker, a Taurus, a food photographer and a culinary educator.

When I’m not on set shooting for food and hospitality brands, I am nurturing The Kitchen by Micole, a cooking community platform with one lofty goal. But before I tell you what it is, here’s what to expect when you walk into my virtual kitchen:

1) First, I’m going to make sure you’re well fed. Like, REALLY? Have you had more than just coffee and a granola bar today?

2) Next, I’m going to tell you what I’ve told everyone else when they walk through my door:
if cooking everyday feels like a f*cking struggle, you’re not alone. Yeah, even if you love food. Even if making food is literally your job. Even if you are the most organized, strategic person on the planet. And ESPECIALLY, if you have a unique, neurodivergent brain like me.
Around here we don’t use moral language to talk about food.
“Healthy” is not a blanket statement but an assessment that can only be made on a bio-individual level by practitioners you trust.
Yup, even a plate full of snacks or yesterdays cold pizza at your desk counts as a meal — especially when it’s a bad brain day.
And most importantly, all brains and bodies are welcome!

3) Finally, I’m going to remind you that I am always here for you.

You can think of me like your kitchen cheerleader and that big goal I mentioned before? Come in a little closer so I can tell you what it is. I want to make sure cooking is the easiest part of your day… seriously. And if you’re thinking, “There is NO f-ing way’, I’m here to assure you — this is my jam and I’m pretty good at it.

One previous client described “it” as being freed from 20+ years of food shame in one session.
Or a dietitian who realized, “I really CAN make restaurant quality meals at home without breaking the bank or my brain”.
Or another woman who put it simply as “… the best investment I’ve made all year.”

I use the power of private sessions to build custom cooking plans for humans just like you. A plan created from scratch, to fit your life like a glove. No, these aren’t cooking classes, and this isn’t just another meal plan. This isn’t a rigid meal prep system you can never stray from. It’s a plan that will help you stay fed even on your busiest day when life starting life-ing. Because a kitchen built on compassion, flexibility and grace is the big secret to consistency.

A custom cooking plan includes simple yet effective solutions for your daily cooking struggles and kitchen icks… BUT this isn’t the most important part, because if just hoarding recipes and having a great meal plan template was the secret to easy everyday cooking… we’d all be a lot less stressed and overwhelmed. In every client session we take time to understand the relationship you have with food, cooking and your body, and the daily lifestyle hurdles that are *ACTUALLY* stopping you from cooking stress-free.

If this sounds like something you needed yesterday, you can learn more or say hi to me through any and all of my platforms — The Kitchen by Micole (.com), on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and Youtube.

The most exciting news is that this community is growing into something EVEN bigger in 2025, so if you’ve been nodding along this whole time thinking, “get me off the meal time struggle bus immediately”, then stick around a while! I’ll see you around the virtual table for something tasty. In need of a food photographer? The Studio by Micole (.com) is where you’ll find me!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

You know how they say that relationships are like a mirror, and what happens in that relationship is simply a reflection of what’s happening inside of you? In your inner world? Well, I have found this to be true of my business, as well. And my business has shown me just how much unlearning I STILL have to do about success and “perfection”.

I once heard this quote that I thought was attributed to Gary Vee but it turns out it was Reid Hoffman who said it first: “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late”.

Too many business owners, myself included, come into this entrepreneurial journey with an expectation of birthing a “perfect” business or product or idea or website or offer. And man, if you waited until you had the “perfect” thing? You’d never move forward.

What I’ve learned on my journey is that perfectionism is the death of creativity. It kills joy and pleasure and play, which are all things that are vital to the life force of a business.

Perfectionism will suck the momentum out of your business faster than perhaps anything else, at least in my experience.

Even four years into this thing, my perfectionism still holds me back at times, but I have A LOT more awareness so at least I can say, “Okay, I had a lot of really potent ideas this week and I just sat on them. Why was that?”. And usually I’ll realize, “Ahh, it was because I wanted to wait so I could turn that thought into a carousel reel on Canva but then I got too busy and never did it.” Perfectionism. Or, “Right, I had that good idea but then I thought about it too long and convinced myself that it wasn’t THAT original.” PERFECTIONISM. “I was planning to reach out to potential clients but then I looked at my website, didn’t think it was good enough and spent the afternoon fixing it instead.” You get the idea.

This is the advice I am still giving myself to this day but it never fails to be valuable: Act upon what lights you up. Yes, you need strategy, but at some point strategy is like a fire, and if you don’t stoke it with passion, play and creativity, that fire will simply turn to cold ash. Also, I think that juicy stuff is what helps to keep you going after years 3, 4 and beyond when the initial drive and delulu of how fun owning a business will be have both worn off – haha! (Also, P.S. you need to have a life outside of your business! Don’t forget about your hobbies! And feed yourself more than just caffeine!)

How did you build your audience on social media?

This is the year I had my first recipe go viral and was able to grow my following in a week from around 2.5K to 40.1K. But do not be deceived… my story has been one of imperfect consistency so it took me about 6-7 years of making content to get here.

I think there are a lot of business owners and creators out there who just have a *knack* for social media. Maybe they’re intrinsically motivated towards posting every day and have that personality for it, or maybe they just have the type-A personality where they’re really good about following a strict posting schedule with perfectly organized content pillars (“every Wednesday I post a video in this educational series” kind of thing).

And while I have always loved making content, have stayed super clear about WHAT I want to post (my brand values, my niche etc), I have never been THAT person who perfectly executes all the time. BUT, a lot of years being imperfectly consistent still gets you FURTHER than if you get too disappointed in yourself and give up entirely.

Over the long term, that 1 or 2 videos a week will still help you get more confident in front of the camera, It will help you to feel more comfortable talking about your business, your brand and who you are. It will allow you to get clear on your brand voice and style. So, I think after many years of just always coming back, no matter how many times I “fell off” or hadn’t made a video in a while, I still gained a lot of traction. I just wasn’t an “overnight success”. But that’s OK with me.

A business coach I worked with, Virginia De Assis, talks about making your business your forever business and to me that means SUSTAINABILITY IS KEY. And since sustainability is a huge theme in the work I do with my clients in their kitchens, it’s forced me to look at sustainability in my own life as well. I continue to ask myself, how can I show up for my business consistently, while also knowing what kind of output is sustainable for me so that I can avoid burning out again?

But back to social media specifically, I’ll wrap it up by saying that I think perhaps the most important thing if you want to build a really solid audience on social, is to have f*cking fun with it! Be yourself and let your freak flag fly! Really create a personal brand that even your friends recognize is “you”. Like, is there something really wacky that you say a lot that you can fold into your content? Do it! The creators and businesses who have cult followings have infused themselves into every nook and cranny of their branding and content. Two social media strategists I love who talk about this a lot are Jera Foster-Fell and Alyssa from @inspiredmediaco. Make it feel like you, don’t be afraid to stand out and no matter what you do – don’t stop showing up and talking about what you do in the world!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thekitchenbymicole.com / www.thestudiobymicole.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekitchenbymicole
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micolerondinone/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOGPD8Vaq4Lw_uVqofpQGkA
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thekitchenbymicole
  

Image Credits

The Studio by Micole / Micole Rondinone, Sami Hobbs / Your Inner Wisdom, Erin Dwyer Photography