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

Theresa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Elegant Cuizines is a fine dining dairy free west African fusion restaurant. What we do differently is sustainability. We want our clients to enjoy their dinner experience without compromising health. Our food is cook from scratch daily. We created a clean food concept in house that allows our clients to have a guilt free dining experience.

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

I founded Elegant Cuizines in 2016 because I truly love creating unique, healthy and tasty food. I also had a full-time job at that time, but Elegant Cuizines was unlike my full-time job – it gave me a sense of purpose. After cooking for family and friends for a few years, I knew food was my passion, purpose and pursuit. So I wanted to make it a career. I decided in 2016 to leave my full-time job and start what we all have come to know and love: Elegant Cuizines Restaurant, then Elegant Cuizines Catering.

I wanted to create a food concept I had not seen, especially in the fine dining space. Something that was clean, but still so good for you. Something that will excite your taste buds and get them questioning what was happening. I also wanted to make sure the dishes were heavily influenced by my Liberian roots.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Well I am sure if we learn anything from the last few years, we learned that we are resilient beings. During the pandemic, I could no longer cater so I had to figure out a way to keep my business growing. After much prayer and conversation with God, meal prep was our pivot point. We turn our catering company into a meal prep company. It allowed us to stayed in business while providing clean food to our clients. We grew so much that we knew the restaurant was our next big goal to accomplish.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe what helped me build my reputation will be my transparency and my need to use food as medicine. I believe that food has powerful abilities when done right and I have so many client testimonies about how our food changed their health.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elegantcuizines.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/elegantcuizinesrva
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/elegantcuizines
• Youtube: Cooking with Chef Headen

Image Credits
Trylanda Roane ( pink pants) Victoria Holm (my and my husband)