Today we’d like to introduce you to Adriana Sanmiguel.
Hi Adriana, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Los Angeles, California, in a family where food was simply a part of life. My Grandmother born and raised in Mexico moved to the U.S. with a dream of owning her own authentic Mexican restaurant. She opened her first Taco Village in 1974 which grew into a chain of restaurants through out the Los Angeles area. She employed her sons and daughters to run each location which included my parents.
Some of my earliest childhood memories are in those restaurant kitchens. I grew up watching my mom and grandmother cook, and remember riding along with my dad while he picked up ingredients and supplies for the restaurants. All of the employees practically became family. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was learning the restaurant business simply by growing up in it. That was basically my playground.
As I got older, I began working at Taco Village and worked in our family’s restaurant for 10 years. Eventually, I became a partial owner of one of the restaurants alongside my sister and grandmother. Unfortunately, during the recession and real estate crash in the 2000s, we lost a large portion of our clientele. Eventually, we made the difficult decision to close the restaurant.
At the time, it felt like the end of something that had been such a huge part of my life. Looking back, though, I think it was actually the beginning of the next chapter.
Years later, I felt inspired to take my love of cooking further and enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena, California. I completed half of my culinary education there before making a major decision to move to Austin, Texas, where I transferred to Le Cordon Bleu’s Austin campus to finish my degree in Culinary Arts.
Moving to Austin was a huge leap of faith. I arrived with very little money and had to figure things out as I went. There were times when I struggled just to make it to school and work, but I was determined to finish what I had started.
After moving to Austin, I eventually found a job in property management. Cooking wasn’t my full-time career at that point, but I never stopped doing it. On my days off, I started preparing meals for my boss out of a tiny kitchen. Other people began seeing the meals and asking if I could cook for them too.
One client became another, and then another.
Soon people weren’t just asking me to prepare their weekly meals. They started asking, “Do you cater?” or “Can you do a private dinner?”
And I kept saying yes.
In the beginning, half the time I had never catered the type of event they were asking for nor had I cooked for that many people. I didn’t have some elaborate business plan or know exactly how a catering company was supposed to operate. I just knew how to cook, I knew how to take care of people, and I was willing to figure out the rest.
Eventually, I had enough clients that I took another leap of faith and left my property management job. I created Prepped ATX, which originally focused on prepared meals while also offering catering.
Then the catering side of the business took off.
As the business grew, I realized that what I created had evolved beyond meal prep. I rebranded Prepped ATX into Lux Chef and transitioned away from prepared meals to focus on catering, private chef dinners, charcuterie and grazing tables, and special events.
When I look back now, it’s interesting how everything has come full circle. I grew up in a restaurant kitchen without realizing how much those experiences were shaping me. I watched my family build businesses around food, experienced what it was like to lose one, went back to school, moved to a new state with very little, started cooking out of a tiny kitchen, and eventually built a culinary business of my own.
My path definitely wasn’t a straight one. A lot of it came from me willing to take chances and say yes before I had everything figured out.
I think that’s one of the biggest things entrepreneurship has taught me: you don’t always have to know exactly how you’re going to get there. Sometimes you just have to recognize the opportunity in front of you, trust what you know, and be willing to figure out the next step.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t always been a smooth road. When I first started my business, I was learning a lot as I went. There were times when I didn’t have enough staff and found myself preparing and executing events for 30 to 75 people almost entirely on my own. I learned very quickly how important it was to stay calm, think on my feet, and find a solution no matter what was happening behind the scenes.
There were plenty of moments when I realized I had forgotten something and had to make a last-minute stop at the store on the way to an event, or when I suddenly needed extra help and had to find someone the same day. My friends were always there to help me with events even at times when it was stressful, we always had fun doing it. In catering, something unexpected almost always happens, but the client should never have to feel that stress. Those experiences taught me how to problem-solve under pressure and make sure everything still comes together smoothly.
One of my biggest challenges came during COVID. Before the pandemic, my business had really grown and I had built a strong client base. When events stopped, I lost a significant amount of that business but I was determined to keep working. Rebuilding afterward has been much harder than I expected, and I’m still working toward getting back to where my business was before COVID.
At the same time, those challenges have made me much more resilient as both a chef and a business owner. I’ve learned that entrepreneurship isn’t always about having everything perfectly figured out. Sometimes it’s about being able to adapt, keep going when things don’t go according to plan, and continue believing in what you’ve built.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Lux Chef is a personal chef and catering company specializing in creating customized food experiences for everything from intimate dinners and celebrations to weddings, corporate events, grazing tables and larger catered events.
One thing that sets me apart is my versatility. I don’t limit myself to one particular cuisine or style of cooking. My culinary background and years of experience have allowed me to create a wide variety of menus based on what each client is looking for. I really enjoy taking someone’s vision or even just a few ideas and turning them into a menu and experience that feels personal to them.
I’m also very hands-on with my events. From creating the menu and sourcing ingredients to preparing the food, presentation and making sure everything comes together on the day of the event, I put a lot of myself into what I do. I want my clients to feel taken care of and be able to enjoy their event rather than worrying about all of the details behind it.
What I’m most proud of is how organically I built my business. It started with me preparing meals for one person in a tiny kitchen on my days off and grew almost entirely through referrals and people experiencing my food. Those meal-prep clients led to private dinners, which led to catering, and eventually Lux Chef became what it is today. I also don’t really advertise or market my business almost everything has grown through word of mouth, which makes it even more meaningful to me.
I’m especially proud that I’ve been willing to grow with every opportunity. I’ve catered everything from small intimate gatherings to large events, and each experience has challenged me creatively and taught me something new.f
For me, being a chef is about more than serving great food. It’s about creating an experience and being part of people’s important moments. Some of my clients have trusted me with multiple celebrations over the years, and being invited back into their homes and events is one of the biggest compliments I can receive.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I think both good and bad luck have played a role in my journey. Some things that felt like bad luck at the time, like losing our family restaurant during the recession, eventually pushed me in a different direction and led me to culinary school and later to Austin.
I also think there was some good luck in how my business started. I wasn’t working in the culinary industry at the time—I was working in property management and happened to start preparing meals for my boss on my days off. Other people saw the food and started asking if I could cook for them too. Those clients referred me to other people, and eventually I was being asked to cater events and do private dinners. I never planned for it to happen exactly that way.
But I also believe luck only takes you so far. I had to be willing to say yes to opportunities, work hard, take risks and figure things out along the way. Looking back, some of the things I thought were setbacks actually redirected me toward where I was supposed to go.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.myluxchef.com
- Instagram: Lux_chef
- Facebook: Lux Chef
