If you’re vegan or just a food fanatic, you’ve probably heard the name Chloe Coscarelli. This name belongs to a vegan superhero, a woman who is changing the way people think about veganism one cupcake at a time.
Chloe was the first vegan chef to win a Food Network cooking competition when she won “Cupcake Wars” back in 2010 with these sexy chocolate cupcakes. Since then, she’s appeared on numerous television programs, written four massively successful cookbooks, started a restaurant empire, and now operates a vegan eatery in Miami… all while still engaging daily with fans. She even took time out of her busy schedule to answer a few of my questions over email (I was majorly fan-girling)!
Chloe is vibrant, driven, creative, tireless, kind, and (of course) a great chef. In the past eight years, she’s set about changing the world for the better — and she’s succeeding. by promoting kindness and breaking bad vegan stigmas one delectable dessert at a time.
The Backstory
Chloe became vegetarian at the ripe old age of twelve, then vegan a few years later. She didn’t feel right eating animals for dinner while her own animals sat watching. While the majority of her classmates spent their time at the beach, Chloe was busy in the kitchen “veganizing” family recipes with her mom.
She became a seasoned chef while at UC Berkeley in her native California, where she spent more time cooking and baking than anything else. The most important thing she learned at University was that she wanted to spend the rest of her life creating marvelous food… not studying sociology. So, after graduation, she moved to NYC where she attended culinary school at The Natural Gourmet Institute and became certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University. She then used her culinary expertise to win Cupcake Wars, and the rest is history.
The Ascent
Chloe’s newfound celebrity earned her television appearances on the Cooking Channel, The Today Show, CNN, and more. She published her first cookbook, Chloe’s Kitchen, in 2012 (VegNews 2012 Cookbook of the Year) to share her famed Cupcake Wars recipes, along with other veganized family favorites. She then went on to publish three more cookbooks: Chloe’s Vegan Desserts in 2013, Chloe’s Vegan Italian Kitchen in 2014, and Chloe Flavor in 2018. In between recipe testing and cookbook meet-and-greets, Chloe also found the time to open her own restaurant!
Making Vegan Food Accessible
In 2015, Chloe partnered with ESquared Hospitality and opened her very first restaurant: by CHLOE. She figured the best way to “make vegan cuisine easy, healthy, happy and… accessible to those interested in it” was to open a restaurant in NYC. She said the “possibilities are endless when it comes to creating healthy, delicious food” with “ingredients like beans, nuts, heathy grains, fresh vegetables” and more (Smart Girl Veg). This fun spot serves fast-casual vegan food like mac n’ cheese with shiitake bacon, nachos, pesto meatball burgers, kale cookies + cream ice cream, smoothie bowls, chocolate chip cookies, and even dog cupcakes (called pupcakes)!
The first by CHLOE. restaurant was so popular that several more opened, along with a Sweets by CHLOE. storefront in NYC. Chloe has since left the by CHLOE. brand, but she had a huge hand in the successful venture that now has eleven U.S. locations and two London locations.
Making Vegan Food Delicious
After leaving by CHLOE., Chloe published another cookbook and opened another restaurant — this time in Miami, FL. Chloe’s new restaurant, Chef Chloe and the Vegan Cafe, sits inside St. Roch Market in the Miami Design District. It features her famous pastries, avocado toast, butternut nachos, matcha ice cream, and more!
Chloe told me she’s always dreamed of opening a vegan eatery. Her cafe took a lot of hard work, but her her dream of “being able to feed people my vegan food” finally came true thanks to the “huge demand for good plant-based food” and her “amazing” fans “who will come from all over to try my offerings.” Her number one fan? Her mom! Chloe’s mom is also Chloe’s biggest inspiration and support system, even coming with Chloe to Miami to help open the cafe! Chloe says she “was all about working the register so she could connect with our guests.” Mom goals!
Making Vegan Food Easy
Chloe’s newest cookbook, along with her older ones, make vegan food more modern, fun, and accessible to the home cook. In every cookbook, she gives advice on how to stock a vegan pantry and provides innovative recipes with easily available ingredients. Basically, she makes going (and staying) vegan as easy as (mahalo mud) pie.
Her recipes are beyond tasty and I can’t count the number of compliments I receive every time I make one of her recipes. Her favorite dessert at the moment? “I’m on a cinnamon roll kick,” she says, “because they’re so versatile and they stay warm and gooey in the center for hours! Plus, they’re bread like enough that you can get away with eating one for breakfast!”
Accolades
Chloe Coscarelli is the adorable face of the vegan movement. She believes that “food is just such a powerful catalyst for change and such a great way to make a positive impact in the world.” She is practicing what she preaches, using her incredible food to promote, instead of push, health and animal welfare. She is a revolutionary, and people are taking notice. She was also in the 2017 Class of 30 Under 30 by Forbes, was on the 2016 Zagat 30 under 30 list, and was the VegNews “Person of the Year” in 2016. Not to mention all of her cookbooks have made it on Amazon’s list of “100 Best-Selling” cookbooks.
All these successes haven’t come without their share of struggles, which Chloe wouldn’t trade because “they are definitely making me more resilient.” Chloe stated her hardest obstacle was just learning that, in the restaurant industry, things don’t always go as planned. “You can have your vision but refrigerators break, people don’t show up, you use salt instead of sugar.” She explained that “all you can do is work hard, develop a great team, and all have fun together during the madness.”
Her advice to budding chefs and entrepreneurs? Knowing that failure will happen, and that you can’t learn without it. Like a true chef, Chloe looks at success like a recipe. “You need all the right ingredients and just the right amount. Sometimes you have added a spice that doesn’t work… because of that failure you have learned what not to do and the outcome is ultimately better because of this.”
As you can see, Chloe is special. She is making plant-based food fun and easy, all the while decreasing the world’s carbon footprint, decreasing animal suffering, and changing meat-eating mindsets. Make one of her recipes, even if you tend to scoff at the word “vegan.” Her Chlostess cupcakes will change your mind.