Roblé Ali

I was born in Poughkeepsie, NY, a little bit up the road in Hyde Park. I spent most of my time in Brooklyn and about five years in Houston Texas. Growing up I had a great family. My grandfather was a chef and he would make everybody happy with his cooking. He was the man in a house full of ladies and he’s the cook; that’s not normal. The fact that he can put some food together and make everyone happy was cool to me. But I never wanted to be a chef. As a kid I always cooked. Not with the intention of pursuing it as a career. I just like food a lot. I love eating. I have two reasons why I started cooking. The first reason is that I love fire, and if I can get paid and not get in trouble for playing with fire then it’s a good deal. And the other thing is, one day we were coming back from church and stopped by some buffet. My parents spent a lot of money there but the food was trash! In my head I was like that’s wrong. If somebody spends money on food it should be good. I was like 9 or 10 years old and I was like how do I make sure that never happens anymore? I knew I had to teach myself how to cook and that became my mission. There was a book fair at school, and I got a pastry cookbook. I did all the recipes and then I started doing savory stuff. I got really good at making breakfast, sandwiches, and stuff like that. I have a bunch of brothers and sisters and I figured out how to leverage cooking. I learned the value of it and instead of doing chores I would cook. Fast forward, I graduated high school at the skin of my teeth. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I applied to some colleges but to professions that I had no love for so I confided in my mom because she knows me better than I know myself. She said, “You’ve always cooked since you were a little boy. Everyone loves your cooking in Poughkeepsie NY. How about you go to culinary school?” So I did it, and came back down to NYC and got blessed to work with amazing people like Tommy Gillespie, Chef Chris Santos and what is now Tao group. I also worked with Abigail Kirsch Catering and was their youngest-ever sous chef, and the first black sous chef of that company. I started formulating my own catering company in 2011. Everyday it gets better and better. The rest is history.