This Disappointing Childhood Meal Inspired Roble Ali To Become A Chef

Chef Roblé Ali is gaining a ton of steam in the culinary world and is "one of the very few young African-Americans in the culinary world with national notoriety." He has cooked for some of the most esteemed personalities in the world, including President Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jack Nicholson, to name a few. As Worth notes, his rise made him "Executive Chef" of Noah Tepperberg's Avenue — "an exclusive gastro-lounge in Manhattan." Shortly after that, he opened his own business, "Roblé and Co.," with a feature on Bravo to boot!

Chef Roblé told Complex, he was introduced to a variety of different foods growing up — everything from pizza, to Somali and Ethiopian cuisine. His reasoning for becoming a chef was simple, though — he wanted "to eat good all the time." And the best way to make sure you always have good food is to teach yourself to make it, right? So what finally inspired him to take matters into his own hands and start cooking on his own?

In another interview with Complex, Chef Roblé dished that a post-church meal was the inspiration for his taking on cooking as a career path. He had gone to both mosque and church as a child, and after church, his mother would take him out to eat. One day, they chose to go to a buffet-style eatery in Houston that the chef did not want to name, and his opinion of the food was lackluster at best. When a child notices that the "highlight of that meal was the soft serve ice cream at the end of it," it's generally not the sign of a stellar dining experience. 

This truly solidified Chef Roblé's understanding that, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. And the rest is history. He shared with Parade that he loves "the textures, the flavors, the smells, the visual of" foods. And lucky for everyone who has had a chance to taste his cooking that he does!