The Perfect Bite

Vinnie Cimino on Building Cleveland's Best Restaurants

If you have been sleeping on Cleveland, Chef Vinnie Cimino is here to wake you up. Vinnie is the co-founder of Cordelia, one of Cleveland's most beloved restaurants, and the brand new ROSY, a wood-fired neighborhood spot that opened just seven weeks before this conversation. He is also a three-time James Beard Award nominee, a community anchor through the Cleveland Family Meal Project and Food Conscious, and one of the warmest, most thoughtful voices in the Midwest food scene today. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Vinnie for a conversation that covers the full arc of a remarkable career. From a childhood surrounded by big Italian-Slovenian family gatherings and his grandmother's restaurant in Kent, Ohio, to working at Greenhouse Tavern under Jonathon Sawyer, to pop-ups and vagabond cooking during COVID, to answering a mysterious Indeed ad posted by his future co-founder Andrew Watts that simply said he wanted to open the next great Cleveland restaurant. Cordelia, now approaching its fourth year, is exactly what it sounds like: a warm hug. Grandma's dining room meets James Beard-level cooking, with family photos on the walls, vintage 1950s silverware, and a seasonal menu built entirely around what local farm partners bring through the back door. ROSY is Cordelia's sibling, but generationally different: old world techniques, live fire cooking, and an Adriatic and Balkan-inspired menu in a 50-seat neighborhood space where 80% of guests just walk in off the street. And running underneath all of it is Vinnie's guiding philosophy: hospitality starts inward. Take care of your team and they will take care of your guests. It sounds simple. In practice, it looks like buying James Beard Awards tickets for almost 50 members of his staff, rolling out PTO for part-time employees, and his team eating cake together the day his nomination was announced while he was away cooking a benefit dinner across the country. In this episode, we cover: * Growing up in a big Italian-Slovenian family with a grandmother who ran her own restaurant in Kent, Ohio * His first mid-rare steak in college and the moment food really clicked for him * Getting pulled into a kitchen at Russo's in Peninsula, Ohio and never really leaving * Taking a $30,000 pay cut with a one-year-old and a new house to pursue cooking for real * Working his way up to CDC at Greenhouse Tavern within 10 months of joining * Pop-ups, cooking in people's homes, and vagabond cooking during COVID * Reconnecting with Andrew Watts through an Indeed ad looking for a chef co-founder * Opening Cordelia: the inspiration, the vintage silverware, the family photos on the walls * A seasonal menu built around what the farms bring in, not the other way around * Why Cordelia's menu changes frequently while 40% stays as beloved staples * Partnering with 23 to 25 local farms including The Chef's Garden and a mushroom farm in Detroit * The "everyone's got the chef's table" feeling at ROSY * ROSY's Adriatic and Balkan-inspired wood-fired menu and the 50-inch wood-fired grill * Three James Beard nominations and what it means to the whole team * Shutting both restaurants down for Beard weekend so almost 50 staff can go to Chicago * Cleveland Family Meal Project during COVID and how it has evolved into Food Conscious * A senior living facility in North Ridgeville centered around healthy food and cooking * Rolling out PTO for all staff, including part-time, because hospitality starts inward * What he is most proud of: watching young cooks become sous chefs * His advice for founders: the hardest part is starting, so just start at square one Find Vinnie and his restaurants: * Cordelia: 2058 East 4th Street, Cleveland | @cordeliacle * ROSY: 2912 Church Avenue, Hingetown, Cleveland | @rosy.restaurant * Vinnie on Instagram: @chefvinniecimino Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here [https://www.youtube.com/@perfectbitepod] to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod [https://www.instagram.com/perfectbitepod/] and sign up for our newsletter [https://the-perfect-bite.beehiiv.com/]!

Diaspora Spice Co.: Spices, Farmers and a New Cookbook

Some brands set out to sell a product. Diaspora Spice Co. set out to change a supply chain, honor a culture, and bring the most potent, story-rich spices in the world into home kitchens across America. Nine years in, they are doing all three. Sana Javeri Kadri is the CEO and founder of Diaspora Spice Co., a regenerative spice company built on a singular mission: put money, equity, and power into the best spice farms across South Asia and bring wildly delicious, hella potent flavors to your everyday cooking. Asha Loupy is Diaspora Spice Co.'s recipe editor and co-author, the woman behind some of the brand's most beloved and obsessively cooked recipes, including the strawberry cardamom bars that reliably spike website traffic every spring. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with both Sana and Asha for a conversation that covers the full arc: from a 23-year-old Sana buying a 350-kilogram turmeric harvest with her first ever tax refund and storing it in a co-op basement in Oakland, to selling out in four days and waking up to 700 orders after a New York Magazine gift guide mention, to building a company that now works with 100+ regenerative farm partners across South Asia and pays 3.9x above commodity price. And now, a cookbook that took five years, three months of travel across 10 Indian states and Sri Lanka, 14 languages, and one very memorable pumpkin chutney discovered in a kitchen in Kashmir as the cameras were packing up. Asha's origin story is equally delightful: she cold-walked her resume into Market Hall Foods after college, worked her way to the cheese department because that's where all the cool people were, and eventually slid into Sana's DMs with a photo of perfectly pleated cumin lamb dumplings with a turmeric wrapper that changed both of their lives. This episode is one of the most joyful, warm, and genuinely inspiring conversations The Perfect Bite has ever had. Two Bay Area women who love good food, care deeply about the people who grow it, and have spent nearly a decade proving that spice can be a vehicle for justice, storytelling, and extraordinary flavor. In this episode, we cover: * Growing up with food: Sana eating all the graduation snacks at preschool, and Asha dictating recipes to her mom at age four * Sana's time at high school in Italy and working on a vineyard and olive grove at 15 * Asha cold-walking into Market Hall Foods and gravitating to the cheese department * The turmeric latte trend that sparked Sana's curiosity about who was actually growing the turmeric * Buying a 350kg turmeric harvest with a $3K tax refund and storing it in a co-op basement * Selling out in four days and waking up to 700 orders after Julia Turshen's New York Magazine mention * Building trust with farm partners by paying quadruple the commodity price on time * How Asha slid into Sana's DMs with perfectly pleated dumplings and changed the trajectory of the brand * Three months traveling across India and Sri Lanka for the cookbook * The pumpkin chutney discovered at the last possible moment in a kitchen in Kashmir * Why they brought in regional cookware for every studio shoot (Kerala clay pots, Manipuri black pottery, Kashmiri copper) * The strawberry cardamom bars that spike website traffic every spring * Busting myths about South Asian cooking: you can make most recipes in the cookbook with six spices * An exclusive tease: Diaspora Spice Co. is opening a store (location and timing TBD) * The Padma Lakshmi collaboration returning later this year * Asha's solo cookbook "Dinner Season" coming June 2027! * Advice for founders: just start and get a good therapist Find Diaspora Spice Co.: * Website: diasporaco.com * Instagram and TikTok: @diasporaco * Available in about 900 independent stores across the U.S, including Whole Foods California * The Diaspora Spice Co. Cookbook: available wherever books are sold Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here [https://www.youtube.com/@perfectbitepod] to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod [https://www.instagram.com/perfectbitepod/] and sign up for our newsletter [https://the-perfect-bite.beehiiv.com/]!

Caper is Reinventing Food Media | Max Tcheyan

What if food media got the Puck treatment? That's the question Max Tcheyan asked and Caper is the answer. Max is the CEO and co-founder of Caper, a new food and hospitality media company built on the premise that the food world deserves the kind of serious, insider, character-driven storytelling that business gets from Puck, that sports got from The Athletic, and that Hollywood gets from Vanity Fair. The characters are there. The stories are there. The journalism just hasn't caught up yet. Max knows how to build this. He was one of the earliest employees at Bleacher Report, grew The Athletic from startup to New York Times acquisition, and co-founded Puck, the subscription media company covering Hollywood, fashion, politics, and business with a talent-led model that changed how premium media gets built. Now he's applying everything he learned to the world he loves most: food, restaurants, and hospitality. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Max for a conversation about what Caper is, why it needed to exist, and how he's building it. The founding team is a genuine Avengers assembly: journalists from The New Yorker, the New York Times, Artnet, Eater, and Bon Appétit who are equity partners in the business, not just employees. The editorial philosophy is built around what Max calls the "power triangle" of food: the hospitality groups (producers), the chefs and restaurants (actors), and the behind-the-scenes agents, the publicists, real estate players, consultants, and advisors, whose influence on food culture nobody is covering yet. There's also an underground chef competition happening in undisclosed New York City locations that sounds like Top Chef meets an underground rap battle. And yes, a podcast and video strategy is coming. This is one of the most forward-thinking conversations about the future of food media and food storytelling we've had on The Perfect Bite. If you care about what food journalism can become, and what food entrepreneurship looks like when it's treated like a tech startup, this one is for you. In this episode, we cover: * Growing up with a northern Italian mother and grandmother and the Bolognese that got frozen and shipped to college * The double meaning behind the name Caper: the ingredient, the adventure, and why it elevated the brand * Dropping out of law school to join Bleacher Report as employee number five in 2007 * Building growth marketing before "growth hacking" was even a term * The Athletic: building a pure subscription model that sold to the New York Times * Co-founding Puck at TPG and what the talent-led subscription model taught him * Why food media felt like sports media in 2016 and why that was the signal to build * The "power triangle" of food: hospitality groups, chefs/restaurants, and the agent class * Why the agent class in food, the publicists, consultants, designers, and advisors, is the most underreported story in the industry * Building Caper's founding team: Emma Orlow, Chris Crowley, and Annie Armstrong * Why equitizing journalists changes everything and protects editorial integrity * The subscription plus advertising model and why multiple revenue streams matter * Partnering with Loewe as the first ad partner and the signal it sends * Underground chef competitions in undisclosed New York locations: the events strategy * Expanding beyond New York through contributors and category-anchored storytelling * The podcast and video strategy coming in the back half of the year * His advice for founders: the hardest thing is to start, and the journey is the reward Find Caper: * Website: caper.media [https://caper.media/] * Instagram: @caper.media [https://www.instagram.com/caper.media/] * Sign up for free or join as a member - two subscription tiers available * Max on LinkedIn: Max Tcheyan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxtcheyan/] * Max on Instagram: @mtcheche [https://www.instagram.com/mtcheche/] Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here [https://www.youtube.com/@perfectbitepod] to our YouTube!  You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod [https://www.instagram.com/perfectbitepod/] and sign up for our newsletter [https://the-perfect-bite.beehiiv.com/]!

Killer Brownie on 500% Growth and Living a Little | Chimene Mayne-Ross

Some brands feel like they were always meant to be national. Killer Brownie is one of them. But it took a 40-year journey, a nurse-turned-founder, and a tagline born from a dad sneaking Oreos to his kids to finally make it happen. Chimene Mayne-Ross is the CEO of Killer Brownie, a gourmet brownie brand born out of Dorothy Lane Market, the legendary Dayton, Ohio specialty grocer her father built, that has grown over 500% since 2019 and is now coast to coast in Target, Kroger, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and more. But Chimene didn't come into the business straight from the family table. She spent 25 years as a nurse first, building the people skills, the regulatory knowledge, and the leadership foundation that would make her the right person to take Killer Brownie national. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Chimene for a conversation that is warm, wise, and full of the kind of generational founder insights you rarely hear in one place. From a childhood of carob instead of chocolate (her mom was a health nut ahead of her time) and Oreos snuck by her dad (who always said "sometimes you gotta live a little"), to writing a proposal for her dad at 45 years old, hiring her husband as COO, growing from 300 Instagram followers to 135,000, going through two rebrands, and landing a partnership with Irresistible Foods Group, the family behind Kings Hawaiian, that has accelerated growth without ever touching the product. This is a story about slow, steady, intentional growth. About knowing who you are and refusing to be diluted by trends. About the tagline that made Chimene cry because it was her dad's phrase all along. And about what it really means to be a third generation founder who takes something beloved and makes it her own. In this episode, we cover: * Growing up with a health nut mom who served liver and onions as an afterschool snack and a dad who snuck them Oreos * The family legacy: Dorothy Lane Market, Dayton's beloved specialty grocer since the 1940s * Why she chose nursing over the family business at 22 and what 25 years taught her * Joining Killer Brownie in 2013 and writing a proposal to her dad for the chance to grow it * What makes the original Killer Brownie so special: caramel, layers, and a gooey texture unlike anything else * Current flavors: cookie dough, caramel macchiato, Mexican hot chocolate, the Brookie, the Kitchen Sink * Growing 500%+ since 2019 and the three hires that made it possible * The rebrand journey: two rebrands, and how the latest finally felt like coming home * The "Live a Little" tagline that made Chimene cry because it was her dad's phrase all along * Why she's unapologetically a dessert brand in a world of protein bars and fiber snacks * Quietly cleaning up the ingredient list since 2013 without ever making it the brand message * The Irresistible Foods Group acquisition and why the Kings Hawaiian family was the right partner * Why "distraction leads to dilution" is her north star * Taking Killer Brownie to Antarctica and feeding the expedition team * Reading 20 books a year and why lifelong learning is her most important leadership tool * Her goal: advising female founders and third generation family business owners * Advice for founders: start with your purpose, know your why, and be prepared to work  Find Killer Brownie: * Website: www.killerbrownie.com [http://www.killerbrownie.com] (with store locator and direct to consumer ordering) * Instagram/TikTok/Facebook: @killerbrownie * Available at Target, Kroger, Food Lion, Harris Teeter, Mariano's, and select retailers coast to coast Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here [https://www.youtube.com/@perfectbitepod] to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod [https://www.instagram.com/perfectbitepod/] and sign up for our newsletter [https://the-perfect-bite.beehiiv.com/]!

Joe Sasto on Breaking Rules and Building a Pasta + CPG Empire

He hated pasta as a kid. Now he's the self-proclaimed Prince of Pasta, the Ruler of Rigatoni, the Sultan of Spaghetti, and one of the most exciting chef-turned-CPG-founders in the food industry. Joe Sasto is the founder of Tantos pasta chips, co-founder of Ripi Foods frozen pasta, author of “Breaking The Rules,” and a familiar face across Food Network, Top Chef, and Netflix competitions. But what makes Joe's story genuinely compelling isn't the resume: it's the mustache, the energy, the happy accident that turned a forgotten tray of dried pasta in a Beverly Hills walk-in into a snack brand heading to Targets nationwide. In this episode, host Sarah Perkins sits down with Joe for a conversation that covers the full arc, from growing up in the Midwest with a mom who served pasta with sauce on top (never married into the noodle), to landing on the pasta station at Quince because a cook was "unwillfully ejected,” to the moment he realized that cooking competitions aren't about ego, they're a sport. From building Tantos out of an accidental kitchen discovery, to getting Ripi Foods into Whole Foods nationwide with an exclusive Cacio e Pepe flavor, to teasing a potential pizza restaurant in New York, Joe is always moving, always building, always with a sauce splatter video ready to go on Instagram. This episode is packed with genuinely useful CPG insights, including a helpful retail tip about exclusives that could change how you approach your next buyer meeting. And plenty of pasta puns. Because that's just who Joe is. In this episode, we cover: * Growing up hating pasta and how he ended up on the pasta station at Quince * California farming, Lazy Bear, and why he still thinks California has the world's best produce * How Top Chef changed everything and why he'd never go back (but also maybe would) * The evolution from ego-driven competition cooking to approaching it like a sport * The happy accident: finding dried-out pasta in a Beverly Hills walk-in and inventing Tantos * Meeting co-founder Sean through Instagram DMs and building the brand together * Breaking The Rules: years of cookbook doubt, writing it anyway, and the black garlic Caesar that everyone makes * Ripi Foods: fresh frozen pasta, Whole Foods nationwide, and an exclusive Target launch * The retail exclusives tip: why pitching exclusive SKUs to big box retailers gets you in the door * Dream collaborations: Matty Matheson for Ripi, and the search for the perfect "pasta chip girl" * Why surrounding yourself with smart, powerful women is the key to everything * Treadmill running, cop dramas, and THC beverages as the perfect wind-down combo * What he's most proud of: the headspace shift and the people around him now * A potential pizza restaurant in New York City, details coming soon * Advice for founders: find a co-founder who fills your voids, not one who mirrors them Find Joe and his work: * Instagram: @chef.joe.sasto [https://www.instagram.com/chef.joe.sasto/] * Check out Joe’s new YouTube channel: Make Mama Proud [https://www.youtube.com/@MakeMamaProudShow] * Breaking The Rules: available on Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Rules-Italian-Classics-Cookbook/dp/1668052571/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26F3KI216SR13&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.W9LY6zU6wG33iZzpeI96AIeh1Q8umWQAa39yBpfuVYuNvUKqnhGMACX4mAII_wLO8TZs6oT7Ej6DYKwyA1j0JGwVxRrZJn1HCgOTzNLuNui9McFS2kU0erkuXDLx2_bZweLL87N5wM3rbdKSWxvv5MptRr0aAQ4BReDxhW-qZww.4RyQKQf-op8jN-Ea_Rnm6Y4JAgu5H1fIWh-FL1OPhmg&dib_tag=se&keywords=breaking+the+rules+joe+sasto&qid=1776861183&sprefix=breaking+the+rules%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-1] or signed copy via link in bio * Ripi Foods: Whole Foods nationwide | www.ripifoods.com [www.ripifoods.com] * Tantos: Amazon and grocery stores nationwide | www.tantossnacks.com [www.tantossnacks.com] Subscribe to The Perfect Bite podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! Want to watch the entire episode? Head here [https://www.youtube.com/@perfectbitepod] to our YouTube! You can follow us on social media @perfectbitepod [https://www.instagram.com/perfectbitepod/] and sign up for our newsletter [https://the-perfect-bite.beehiiv.com/]!