Meet Marianna Caldwell

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marianna Caldwell.

Hi, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born and raised in a small town in the upper northeast of Iowa but spent much of my childhood traveling and living abroad. My parents were professors at a liberal arts college and brought my brother and me on many of their student trips and sabbaticals. These experiences opened my eyes to different cultures and cuisines from an early age and made a profound impression on me. Particularly, my time spent living in Alsace, France, which was my first introduction to Riesling, and later, living in Sliema, Malta.

Our house growing up was right next to the college campus and always full of visitors from all over the world. My parents impressed upon me a sense of hospitality and what it meant to host guests in your home. This transferred over when I began working in restaurants at fourteen. I followed my best friend (now a chef in our hometown) and started working as a busser at a local “upscale” restaurant in town. At the time, I was in love with theatre and dreamed of being an actor in New York City. In between summer acting jobs, I continued to find work in restaurants and bars, and moved from busser to host to server. I ended up getting into the MFA Acting program at Columbia University, and ultimately left New York for Los Angeles after obtaining my degree.

Never in a million years did I imagine I would end up in Los Angeles. My mother is a native Angeleno, and we spent many summers out in L.A. visiting my grandmother when I was young. In my heart, though, I was a New Yorker. New York to me was a vibrant tapestry of culture, food, art, music, performance, and poetry everywhere you looked. L.A. was Hollywood and people sunbathing on the beach waiting for their agent to call. Needless to say, I had a pretty poor impression of Los Angeles, despite spending time there as a kid, so it was surprising even to me that I ended up there. Now, more than eight years later, I have come to appreciate L.A. for what it really is—a tapestry of culture, food, art, music, performance, and poetry everywhere you look.

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?
The biggest lesson I learned, particularly after moving to L.A., was that a career does not define a person, and it’s good to know when to move on. Shortly after moving to L.A., I landed a job at a new restaurant opening in Brentwood. By this time, I had worked every position in the front of house and was looking to expand my experience. I was getting interested in wine and was curious about what working as a sommelier would be like. Somehow, I convinced the opening General Manager & Executive Chef to hire me as a floor sommelier, in return, offering my services as a Maître D’. They took a chance, and within eight months, I found myself running the entire beverage program and taking WSET (Wine & Spirits Educational Trust) classes in pursuit of my sommelier certification. I had never worked harder in my life, often working 6-to-7-day weeks, but the more I learned the more I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I called my agent and told him I was thinking of quitting acting to pursue wine. He was incredibly supportive and perhaps even a little jealous. “Acting will always be there” he said and told me to give him a call if I changed my mind. That was the last time I spoke to him. I never looked back. It felt like the right time to close that chapter of my life and I still utilize skills I gained while I was pursuing acting.

In changing careers, the biggest challenge I have faced is being a woman in a historically male dominated industry. I can’t tell you the number of times a guest has asked me to send the sommelier over, assuming it is a man. Or how difficult it is to work up into a management position. A lot of progress has been made over the years in our industry, and in fact, I now lead of team of managers who happen to all be women.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
After earning my sommelier certification and working as a Beverage Director for a while, I happened upon a restaurant while on a trip to Savannah, Georgia called Elizabeth’s on 37^th. When I ordered a bottle of wine off the wine list, the gentleman taking my order seemed to have a twinkle in his eye. He asked if I worked in the wine industry, and I responded that yes, I was a sommelier. He suggested I check out the framed photo by the bathrooms. Curious by this strange suggestion, I did later during the meal. The small, framed photo was of the man I was speaking to next to the Dalai Lama as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize (the winner that year was a young president named Obama). When I asked him about it, he explained that he has utilized his talents as a sommelier and restauranteur to fundraise for charitable causes. He smiled and said, “you can do a lot of good with wine.” This moment has stuck with me since and was also a memorable experience in the meaning of hospitality. This humble man, who was dressed simply as all the other waitstaff, was the owner of the restaurant I was dining in, and he held himself no different than any of his staff.

This experience stuck with me for many years and was part of why I chose to come work at Cassia. Chef Bryant Ng and his wife Kim Luu-Ng are some of the humblest restaurant owners I have ever worked for. They, too, utilize their culinary talents for good and have fundraised for many charitable and socio-political causes with their fundraising platform, LA Chefs for Human Rights. As owners, they treat their staff as family, and will go above and beyond for them.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Besides the opportunity to help in doing good for others, I love being able to curate an eclectic list and introduce people to wines they might never know otherwise. Just as the cuisine at Cassia is a unique blend of flavors and crosssection of Southeast Asian cultures, the wine list reflects that with wines from all over the world and varieties even I had never heard of before. When I get to introduce someone to a wine they have never heard of before, it just fills my heart.

Outside of the wine and hospitality industry, I am at my happiest when I am on a mountain. I love hiking and frequently hike with champagne to open at the summit. I’ve found a method of keeping champagne cold and nothing is more satisfying than hearing that soft ‘psst’ of a champagne cork while looking out on a sea of never-ending mountains.

Contact information:

• Phone: 310-393-6699
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @dinecassia

 

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