Naturally It Becomes Passion, When You Put Your Heart on It

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1. Tell us about your background and journey?

My name is Juang Perez (@juangpizza) I’m originally from Colombia. Came to Boston 12 years ago at a young age and since then I been working on different restaurants in the Boston area. Such as American pizza place (California pizza kitchen) a Chinese, French restaurant, and currently Italian food and pizza.

2. What led you to take up to this career path?

Since I was a kid I fell in love the all about hospitality & food of all kinds.. growing up in Colombia, a country fills with so many different foods, different recipes, local Ingredients.. one of the most diverse countries in the world.

All these have always pushed me forward to follow my new culinary career.

3. What does your typical day looks like?

It all consists mostly of when I’m working to make sure we have all set for the night services at the resultant, making sure we have enough prep for each shift and of a curse if the time allows me to think about what will be next special for the night or the following day.

If I’m home. I always wake up early! Get a nice breakfast and if I don’t have to run some errands I always get in front of the tv to watch as much food tv shows as I can! And I use most part of my day sharing my work in my social media sites @juangpizza and of course, always need to use some time to reply to all the questions that my followers have. I’m currently have 20k in my Instagram account and 5k on my Facebook page.

4. Does one's approach change when cooking professionally and at home?

I feel that the situation is totally different cooking at home than cooking professionally.. the fact that you have hundreds of people waiting to have your food daily is a pressure that of course, you don’t have a home where you can relax more and use crazy food combinations if you like.. in the meantime in the restaurant you always want consistency while at home you have the freedom of being messy and be fun.

5. Is there a dish you particularly associate yourself with?

Yes, PIZZA! Pizza is my favorite type of food plus I been doing it for the past 12 years so I’m 100% on it even though we do have a big menu in our restaurant. As I comment before I do have a social media Platform ( @juangpizza ) where I share what I do daily, photos, videos and more.

6.Can cooking be learnt at culinary schools or a natural talent is required?

I don’t think that you don’t need to be born with some talent to do anything in life. I believe that if you put all your heart on whatever you want to do it naturally will become your passion. I personally never went to culinary school! Don’t take me wrong. of course, school is the best you can do but I have the opportunity to learn from a group of amazing chefs that taught me all I know! Plus to me, every day in a kitchen is a day in school and it will be like this if you want to be the best.

7. Which is your favorite book and why?

Of course, it has to be a pizza book. “The pizza bible” by Tony Gemignani! Not only you can have the recipes from one the biggest names in the pizza business but will fall in love with the photography, the passion and the fact that you can do every single recipe makes it the perfect book for all pizza lovers and chefs.

Instagram ID: @juangpizza