Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Longo
Christina, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started out wanting to cook professionally with the goal of becoming a chef, but along the way I started working more closely with restaurant bakers and pastry chefs. I found that the artistry and detail work on the dessert side of the kitchen appealed to both my creative and analytic nature. I had moved to Seattle in the late 90’s to attend culinary school, and I decided to change my focus to pastry arts while there. After school, I apprenticed in a patisserie in Saint Germain-en-Laye, France, and when I returned home to Seattle I landed my first head pastry chef role at the Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington. I was there for 8 years developing my craft, and earned recognition in 2003 as a Rising Star Pastry Chef from Star Chefs magazine. When I returned to Florida in 2009, I helped to open Taverna Restaurant in San Marco as their pastry chef. I was there until the pandemic shutdowns in 2020, and then decided to make the leap into my own business, Stella Dolci Desserts.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not always been a smooth road, but I have been fortunate to have excellent mentors and supportive family and peers along the way. When I was starting my career in Seattle in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, there was a great community of chefs who lifted each other up and continue to network and encourage each other. That made moving up the ranks a little easier. When I moved back to Florida, I was also starting my family, and I faced the challenges of being a working mother in an industry that doesn’t always encourage work-life balance. I had to carve out my own schedules around school and childcare, but I was lucky to find employers, Sam and Kiley Efron of Taverna, who were also starting a family and understood the struggle of finding that balance. They were always willing to work with me to find the right fit because they valued my contribution to their team.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As a working pastry chef, I specialized in European style desserts, mostly for fine dining and banquet service in boutique hotels and upscale restaurants. One of my passions at Taverna was developing artisan gelato flavors for the dessert menu and coming up with fresh seasonal dessert specials and fun cookies for the cookie plate. I think I’m most known for having a balanced sweet and savory palate in my desserts, something that skews more towards Italian and French pastries. At the same time, I love Americana and traditional pies and cakes, so I think a fusion of technique and familiar flavors has become my signature.
Personality wise, I’m a calm and easygoing person, so in that way I’ve always brought a sense of composure to the kitchens I’ve worked in, where chefs are often known to be short-tempered and high strung. More recently, I’ve found that my patience has translated well to teaching others to cook and bake. I started teaching classes part time at the Sur La Table store in Town Center last year, and soon transitioned into teaching private baking lessons and mentoring young bakers, some with special needs, who require an even-keeled approach to learning.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I think it’s often necessary to take risks to achieve success, and I have definitely had to make those choices throughout my career. Probably the biggest risk I’ve taken was leaving the restaurant world and striking out on my own in 2020, finally becoming self-employed, which was always a dream of mine. I knew that I could not continue working the kind of hours that restaurant and catering work demands forever – it takes a toll both physically and mentally in the amount of adrenaline required to perform in that environment. But the risk of an uncertain income and lack of benefits when starting a small business was daunting at first. I had to fill in the blanks with some part time gigs to keep afloat, but that led to more opportunities through building new relationships..
I knew a simple cottage bakery would not sustain my family indefinitely. I have always adapted to change well and I was flexible with what shape my business would take. Having a network of colleagues to connect with when starting out was key. A lot of chefs were finding themselves unemployed or looking for a new challenge in 2020, so working together with chefs who were starting food trucks and catering companies was a way to expand my reach. Also, pivoting into more of a business model that seeks to educate the next generation by passing on my skills and experience is becoming a key to the vision that I could not have foreseen at the outset.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stelladolcidesserts.com
- Instagram: @stelladolcidesserts
