Episode Details

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

• Listen Now