Celebrity Chef Roble Ali always have something brewing in the kitchen and Bravo has documented it for two seasons. Since 2011 his life has been chronicled on television running a high-end catering company and dealing with a variety of situations.
Born in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Roble attended the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He then worked as the youngest sous chef ever in Abigail Kirsch, a catering company in New York.
He has prepared dishes for artists such as Michael Jackson, Russell Simmons and Faith Evans, among many others.
Windy City Times dished with him at his Everyday People Brunch about gay A-list friends Art Smith and Andy Cohen as well as his Bravo celebrity life. The brunch, presented by SKYY Vodka's House of Moscato Grape, took place at Sawtooth in Chicago's West Loop.
Windy City Times: Hi, Roble. Thanks for the tweet this morning. You are a New Yorker?
Roble Ali: I am but I bounced around a lot. I'm from Poughkeepsie, which is an hour north of New York City. If I added up all of my time then I spent most of my time in Brooklyn. I lived in Greenville, Miss., for a year and a half.
I lived in Houston, Texas for five or six years. I lived in Greenville, Miss., for a year and a half when I was a little kid. I did the South then I came back to the North.
WCT: Were you influenced by the Southern cooking?
Roble Ali: Hell, yeah—definitely. I picked up a lot, especially in Texas. You have Southern cooking there and you have barbeque. They are serious about barbeque. I learned to barbeque in Houston.
WCT: You went to school for cooking?
Roble Ali: Yes, I went to the Culinary Institute of America. It is in Hyde Park, N.Y., which is right next to my hometown of Poughkeepsie. It is the next town over. It is the Harvard of cooking school. I think I was meant to be a chef because I was born in Poughkeepsie, I like cooking, I like eating, and the best cooking school was next door!
WCT: Did your family do a lot of cooking?
Roble Ali: My grandfather was a chef. He actually had a restaurant in Philadelphia way back in the day. His story that he will tell you over and over again is that he got to cook for JFK.
WCT: You have a fascination with [preparing dishes] for presidents also, I have heard.
Roble Ali: I wouldn't say a fascination but I did have the opportunity to cook for Obama once. Hopefully, I get another chance to.
WCT: It was a goal of yours to cook for the president?
Roble Ali: No, but any chef would want to cook for the president. There are lots of people I want to cook for like Prince, or Patti LaBelle.
WCT: She did ask me to visit for dinner once when I interviewed her.
Roble Ali: I want to cook for her because she cooks. More than the president, I want to cook for her. She keeps hot sauce in her purse!
WCT: Really?
Roble Ali: Yes, more than one kind of hot sauce. Anyone that is that serious about food I want to cook for.
WCT: Have you been to Chicago often?
Roble Ali: I have. I love Chicago. It is my favorite American city outside of New York City, my home. I end up here all the time. I am always here.
WCT: I heard you visited Table Fifty-Two.
Roble Ali: Art Smith is my man. He's a great human being. I actually went to Southern Art in Atlanta, like, two nights ago and I was at Table Fifty-Two last night so I had Chef Art Smith's food in two different cities in less than 48 hours.
WCT: He must have loved that.
Roble Ali: He was at the restaurant last night and took care of my friends. He physically brought food to our table. He's so humble and I really admire him a lot.
WCT: You ate at the presidential table?
Roble Ali: Yes. I am sure a lot more people have eaten there than he told me but I know President Clinton ate there, President Obama, Lady Gaga...
WCT: Oprah Winfrey, of course...
Roble Ali: I think she likes to sit downstairs in the back corner.
WCT: I am sure. Speaking of food, how did you become involved with this brunch?
Roble Ali: We host a brunch in New York City called Everyday People. It is wildly successful. It is an all-day party. It goes for eight to 10 hours and starts at noon. We started it a little over a year ago. It was my friend Saada's idea. It started with 35 people; then more people came. We started the party in one room at a hotel then moved it to the restaurant. It would be like a club in the middle of the day. You would come outside and the sun would still be up! We outgrew that place then moved it to another place. Now it is roughly a thousand people.
WCT: It has really taken off.
Roble Ali: It has and now we do it at other cities. We did D.C., Atlanta, Houston [and] now Chicago. We are going to do Art Basel in Miami, SXSW in Austin, Coachella, Sundance—all of it.
WCT: Come back here for Lollapalooza next year.
Roble Ali: We are in talks with them. It's gonna happen.
WCT: Let's talk about your show on Bravo, Roble & Company. You have had lots of celebrities on the show, such as Kandi Burruss from the Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Roble Ali: Kandi was on the first season and Phaedra Parks was this season. I was just on the phone with her earlier today. She had a baby boy. She loves to throw events and she is over the top but in a good way so she is having a naming ceremony for him. She wants to have about 50 people so I am going to Atlanta to help with that. I think they are filming it for the Housewives show.
WCT: Sounds like a crossover.
Roble Ali: Cross-pollination! She taught me that term.
WCT: What do you love about being on Bravo?
Roble Ali: It opens a lot of doors. Let's say that you are a really good dancer or singer and you know that you are talented but other people didn't know it. If you can do it on TV then people can judge and see for themselves if you are talented or not. If people see that you are talented then they want to work with you. It is basically a big fat commercial for everything that I do. It communicates to people what I do so I don't have to explain or prove it to them, they have already seen it on TV. When I am in Chicago they ask me throw a brunch because they know the food will be good.
WCT: Is it good for business?
Roble Ali: Does a bear shit in the woods? It is amazing and a real blessing.
WCT: What is your favorite thing about Andy Cohen?
Roble Ali: His personality. He is so cool. He's a good guy. He's smart and very helpful. I can email him to ask a favor that has nothing to do with Bravo or TV. He will connect me with someone and writes me right back. I am one of a hundred people that are on that network so I use it wisely. I feel that he cares about me and my team and what we do. He looks out for us and is very open minded. He gave a young black kid that not a lot of people know at TV show on Bravo when he could have given it to any of the winners of Top Chef. I came out of nowhere. He saw it, understood it, and believed in it.
WCT: He changed your life.
Roble Ali: He made my life! A lot of people have helped me along the way but Andy Cohen made my life what it is today. Chris Santos is another people that helped me. You might know him from the show Chopped. He has an amazing restaurant called Beauty & Essex, go there. He kicked my ass for a long time and toughened me up and taught me how to cook. He put me in a position where a network like Bravo would even consider me for a show. Andy Cohen is the one who flipped that switch and made it go from here to there.
WCT: I saw you played a prank when you were in Cohen's office.
Roble Ali: [Laughs] I had so much fun with that!
WCT: Do you know about another season coming?
Roble Ali: We are in conversations right now. I don't see why a season three wouldn't happen. We had good numbers. I'm not going anywhere!
WCT: What projects do you have coming out?
Roble Ali: I am doing some fashion. It is not high fashion but more like t-shirts and baseball caps. Go to www.pyknic.com for Food Porn clothing. There are T-shirts with mouth watering pornographic food photos on them, like a stack of chicken and waffles with syrup dripping off the plate and onto the shirt. We have snapback baseball caps. It is doing really well but we haven't really done a push yet. It is selling like crazy, though.
Myself and Adam Banks, my sous chef, business partner and best friend, is also a sommelier so I partnered with him to make wine. We have been to California wine country, Sonoma, Napa, Oregon, to develop this wine. We are going to come out with a line of Roble wines. I know wine but Adam knows wine! It is good to have someone at my side that knows about it.
I am going to open a restaurant in Brooklyn in the next six months. I will be doing a fragrance called Clique by Roble. I wish I had it on me so you could smell it.
WCT: Does it smell like food?
Roble Ali: Most perfumes smell like food. There are spices in there like cinnamon, clove and hibiscus. There are lots of ingredients that we use in food that will be in it. So, yes, it does smell like food—just not a hamburger!
Follow @ChefRoble on Twitter to keep up with all of his sizzling projects.
