A High School Mistake Led Adrianne Calvo To Her Passion As A Chef

Adrianne Calvo has a long list of impressive titles. Award winning Miami based restaurateur, best-selling cookbook author, Emmy-nominated YouTube show host, podcaster, viral Instagram creator, non-profit founder, and chef all top the list of accomplishments for Calvo and she’s far from done yet.

For more than 15 years, Calvo has brought “maximum flavor” to both her restaurants, Chef Adrianne’s Vineyard Restaurant and Bar and Cracked by Chef Adrianne, and cookbooks, and all of it happened by accident. 

When Calvo experienced a scheduling mix up in high school, her path changed quickly and drastically. She planned to take a journalism class but was instead put into a cooking class. She said it was the best mistake ever.

“Accidentally, or was it meant to be? I always wanted to be a journalist. I loved telling stories. I really saw myself in that realm in my adult life. I had taken tv production and journalism in high school all the way up to junior year, and junior year, first day of school and they put me in a cooking class by mistake. And at that time you had to wait about two weeks for the counselors to pull you out and put you in class that you really had request,” she told The Blast exclusively.

“That first week, Johnson & Wales University, one of the leading culinary universities in America, came to do a demo and it was as if they were only speaking to me. That day on, from junior year in high school, all I wanted to do is be a chef. I became completely obsessed with culinary arts and later on in my career would show me that there would be plenty of storytelling through food.”

It didn’t take long to realize that being a chef was her calling. While in culinary school, she wasn’t interested in fancy dishes, but was all about maximum flavor. She competed in culinary contests in school with the approach that she wanted her dishes to make people think about it long after enjoying it. That approach continues to pay off. 

After graduating, she published her first cookbook appropriately titled, “Maximum Flavor” and became the youngest cookbook author ever at just 20-years-old. 

With the money she earned from her cookbook sales, Calvo opened her first restaurant, Chef Adrianne’s Vineyard Restaurant and Bar. 

When opening her first restaurant at 22-years-old with zero restaurant experience, Calvo said she hit many roadblocks, but that didn’t stop her. 

“I opened a farm-to-table restaurant in an unassuming shopping center in the suburbs of Miami, when people hadn’t heard of farm-to-table in Miami. People had only heard of Cuban cuisine in Miami. And there was no social media for me to go out there and say hey look what I’m making at the time," she told The Blast.

"You had to wait for the newspaper to come in and do a review of the restaurant and talk about you and put you on the map. Well, who was gonna write about a 22-year-old chef with no pedigree, with nothing, out in a shopping center? There was nothing to write about."

Calvo took the approach that she will just make the best dish she could day in and day out and eventually people will show up. And that's exactly what happened.

As Calvo's career was taking off in amazing directions, her personal life took a sad turn. Her younger sister Jennifer passed away from a rare form of cancer, which made her give up on cooking for a while, until she saw an ad for an affordable restaurant space. It sparked something in her and made her think about what her sister would always say about our time on earth, “We have to make it count.” 

“My younger sister had passed away from a very rare tongue cancer. And that was a very difficult and informative time in my life. She passed away when she was 20 and I was 21 and had just come out of culinary school. She would never be able to eat again and for me, that was like, I never wanted to cook food for people ever again. And later that changed," she said.

"In the time that she thought she was going to be better, we all thought she was going to be better, her mission, every day she would say, ‘When I get better, Adrianne, we’re gonna help out the kids at the cancer hospitals like St. Jude because I can’t believe how your life just gets flipped upside down.' When she passed away it became my mission.”

So Calvo started the Make It Count Foundation. Through the foundation, she's able to help support various organizations, such as St. Jude Children's hospital.

The Foundation's mission strives "to make impactful contributions to various charitable causes through personal and extensive hands-on involvement," according to the website. "With each interaction we have with those in need, we truly make it count!"

For anyone who's just starting out in cooking, Calvo shared some simple advice.

“I think that as cheesy as this may sound, you have to really love it. You have to be sure that you love it," she said. "Because if you do love it, you will take every hurdle that comes your way and every obstacle and you will find that courage in you and you will find that strength to overcome whatever comes at you.”

What does the future hold for Calvo, who's already accomplished so much? She would like to produce a series for a streaming service that depicts the story of a young girl making it in "the hardest industry there is."

"We’re currently where people are talking about the end of the culinary industry and because of the pandemic, so many restaurants closed," she said. "And now with inflation and all of that, well, how do you navigate that?”