Conversations with Oryan Levi

Today we’d like to introduce you to Oryan Levi

Hi Oryan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story begins with a stomach ache, or more accurately a long series of stomach aches. A grumpy childhood of tummy issues and doctors visits that eventually led to a diagnosis of Celiac Disease – an autoimmune disease for which the only treatment is a strict gluten free diet.

Though my memory is shrouded in a fog of teen angst, I remember taking the news that I had to become fully gluten free as absolute tragedy. A death to all my favorite foods. This was 2009 – gluten free products were confined to a tiny section on the shelf, our “bread” was a 3 pound brick sweetened with fruit juice, and rice cakes reigned supreme.

Resources and education around preparing gluten free food were scarce, and I remember so clearly my school lunches alternated between plain quinoa and white rice with raisins (don’t knock it until you try it!), always accompanied by a ziploc bag of popcorn. Field trips, birthday parties, sleepovers, anything social became more complicated because I was rarely able to participate in any shared food and I’d always have to plan ahead so that I’d be taken care of. Even going out to dinner with family meant I ate beforehand because salad was usually the only thing on the menu I could eat – and who the hell wants a salad from a pizza place?

What’s tough about adjusting to life with such a strict restriction isn’t just the struggle of finding safe food, but also rewiring how you think about your social life. Talk to anyone who has Celiac or any other severe food allergy and I guarantee they’ll tell how they’ve felt like a bother or burden to their friends. How we always have to be the one to choose the restaurant for the group or how our purses are full of granola bars, just in case. How we have to be the first to talk to the waiter at the restaurant and say “I’m so sorry but I have an allergy….” There’s no late night slice of pizza after the bars for us, and even snacking on chips and salsa at happy hour is off limits. It makes it impossible to be easy or spontaneous, especially for things like travel or dating.

I know, I know what you’re thinking, “it’s JUST food”. But is it? In our daily lives, eating is as much about the food on your plate as it is about where you enjoy the meal or who you share it with. Having a severe food restriction means that I often miss out on moments of connection and community nourishment, and even if I do get to share a meal, if I’m not the one who physically prepared the food, there’s always an underlying layer of fear and anxiety around potentially getting sick.

The emotional context of my journey to this day is as important as the steps that got me here, so let’s pick the story in 2018. I had just graduated from UCLA with a communications degree, and moved back home to the Bay Area. Though the goal was always to live in LA, I quickly got sucked into a job at a Palo Alto tech start-up and started a 4 year dalliance with the fast paced world of Silicon Valley. I loved it at the time – long hours, unlimited Sweetgreen, everyone working together to build something that people will actually use. I loved the constant problem solving, the deeply entrenched team spirit, the scrappy mentality, and buzz phrases like “North Star” that really got me going. I loved that as an endlessly ambitious 21 year old, I could be hired as a freelance copywriter and find myself managing a marketing team a year later just by taking ownership of work that needed to be done.

After being laid off from my first start-up job at the start of the pandemic, I worked a few short stints at other small start ups and even played around with a few of my own companies, before landing at a FinTech company where I worked from 2021-23. Remote work had allowed me to move back to LA and work from my couch. I was killing it at work but, as is so often the case, the high pressure, long hours, and the constant organizational issues common to start ups had me feeling burnt out by the time I was 25. I realized I was pouring all of my creative and emotional energy into projects that weren’t mine, and ultimately, that I didn’t actually care about. The excitement and my love of building things distracted me from the fact that I didn’t actually give a shit about “the future of banking”.

I’ve always loved food and knew I would eventually work in the industry. I’ve sketched out countless concepts for cafes and food trucks and bakeries, but it always felt too risky and uncertain to pursue as a “real” career. But as I started to dread the days at my startup job, cooking and sharing food had become the best part of my week.

By September of 2022, I had worked up the courage and the plan of action for leaving my startup job, put in my two weeks, and immediately took a job as a baker at a new gluten free bakery opening in Woodland Hills. For two months, I woke up at 4am every day and executed an 8 minute morning routine before I was in the car, chugging cold brew and driving through Hollywood in the dead of night. I’d spend 9 hours a day scooping cookie dough and making bagels, then I’d drive home exhausted, sleep, and do it all again the next day. All I did for two months was work, drive, and sleep and today I consider that routine the most effective burnout therapy I could have opted into. Working with my hands all day and shooting the shit with a kitchen crew revived and reinvigorated me.

Around Thanksgiving of 2022 I broke my elbow which took me out of commission from being able to work at the bakery and I took it as a sign to get into business for myself. I started my pop up bakery – Nish Noosh – which means “little snack” in Hebrew – and got fully licensed as an LA Cottage Food Operation so that I’d be able to bake and sell from my home.

For all of 2023, my goal was to get as many gluten free people as I could to taste my baked goods. I started an Instagram, posted weekly pre-orders on Hotplate, popped up at makers markets and convinced stores like Our Place to let me fry donuts in their backyard. I put up posters around every neighborhood in LA (extremely effective marketing) and walked around with cookie samples in my purse to hand out to anyone and everyone (even more effective marketing).

I started with the recipes I’d been making for myself for years and dove deeper into learning new techniques and making my own flour blends to create gluten free versions of the foods I craved most. I tried my hand at everything: birthday cakes, wedding dessert bars, wholesaling to coffee shops, teaching classes, catering large events. If it was food related and gluten free, I said yes.

By the end of 2023, I’d refined my recipes, gotten really clear feedback about what my people love about my food, and most importantly defined the things I don’t want to do in my day to day. I reaffirmed what I already knew about myself – that I love to cook savory food more than I love to bake – and that I live for making others with food restrictions feel safe, cared for, and nourished. I’ve cried commiserating tears with so many of my clients, connecting over our shared struggles and frustrations with food, and cried happy tears with customers that are blown away by the taste and textures of my gf goodies. I’m not afraid to toot my own horn here – my gf baked goods are the best I’ve tasted.

Going into 2024, I decided to pivot slightly away from the baking business and focused more on cooking for events, private dinners, or special occasions. My goal is to create memorable, shareable experiences around food that just happens to be gluten free. I love the challenge of taking on a list of dietary restrictions and constructing a menu that accommodates everyone without sacrificing taste and experience. I live for the moment when someone realizes that the meal they’ve arrived at is not only delicious, but also accessible and safe for everyone dining.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Something I know about myself is that my work always becomes my life. I genuinely get excited and passionate about the things I’m building, and I don’t relate to the idea that work is something you have to bear through until the weekend when you live your actual life. I love to work hard, stay busy, and be creative, so working for myself feels like the most natural thing in the world.

I’m not afraid of hard manual labor or being tired. Being broke isn’t something that scares me, and though going from a six figure tech salary to being self employed was a brutal, ice plunge of a life situation, the fact that I had made the choice in service of a personal mission is my daily motivation.

As much as I like to hate on Silicon Valley these days, I recognize that coming from that “work hard, fail fast” culture was a huge advantage when building my business. At no point did I feel confined to a plan that I’d set up, and I didn’t commit to any specific format, product or service – instead I opted into any opportunity I could and took learnings away from everything. My primary goal for my first year was to collect as much data as possible. What do people like? What’s working? What’s the best way to pitch myself and what I do?

I used a ton of the skills and frameworks that I picked up in my startup career, and was lucky enough to have a network of super smart ex coworkers that were always around to help think through problems or just brainstorm together.

I could pick out weeks from this past year where I was filled with self doubt, felt unmotivated, or had to do work I hated in order to pay the bills. But truthfully, the past 18 months of working for myself have been incredibly fulfilling and self affirming. A friend told me that it was inspiring to see me “living my purpose”, and I have to admit that’s exactly what it feels like. Things are going well, and I feel invigorated by what I do. I’m extremely grateful that I can say that.

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?
I’m deeply, undyingly passionate about good tasting food that just happens to be gluten free.

When you think “gluten free”, you’re probably thinking about something that sucks. Often crumbly, dry, or disappointing, gluten free food gets such a bad rap, and it’s truly a shame that gluten free products often get lumped together with other “healthy” categories like sugar free, dairy free, or vegan.

As someone who eats gluten free by necessity not by choice, I want butter! I want cheese! If I want a donut, I want it to be fried and full of refined sugar. I’m so sick of the healthy gluten free “treats” being offered up as a comparable option when all I want is a nutella stuffed deep fried something coated in a drippy sugary glaze. I’m so frustrated by the state of gf products on shelves and in restaurants, and I’m frustrated by the almost universal negative perception of anything gluten free.

I always tell people, “gluten free food doesn’t have to suck, you’ve just had bad food that happens to have been gluten free”.

What sets me apart from a lot of the chefs adding gluten free options to their menu or even starting gluten free packaged good brands is that I get it. I understand the constant disappointment we feel over whatever the gluten free option is on a menu (a fruit cup for dessert..I mean come on). I understand the constant anxiety around food, or fear that any meal out can leave you sick. For many of us, the effects of being “glutened” last for weeks, and even if we want to be social or attend an event, it’s often not worth taking the risk of participating in the meal.

To me, it’s not just about giving you an option, it’s about serving you food that’s interesting, big and bold, that sparks joy and leaves you feeling nourished – both body and soul. It’s important to me to create meals that make you feel safe and cared for. I never want any of my clients to apologize for their restrictions or feel like their allergies are a bother to me.

In practice, that means cooking and baking for groups big and small. My favorite types of gigs are meals in people’s homes, where I essentially cook a dinner party for a group of friends. I love to be part of the party, handing out little tastes and bites, and bringing joy to the food. I serve everything family style, use colorful thrifted dishware, and insist on a meal from me being a full sensory experience. For guests who are used to being left out of a big family style meal, I don’t think it’s dramatic to say that it’s life changing to be welcomed wholly into a shared food experience.

Every day, I see people’s faces change when I tell them that I have Celiac too, that I understand what a “fully gluten free kitchen” means, that I have been through the same journey as them and that I have the answers to their problems. When I follow up those claims with a fabulous delicious meal, where every dish is safe to eat, I almost always see tears of joy.

When I’m not cooking full meals, I offer meal prep services, custom GF cakes, breads and treats, and pop up around the city with GF food concepts. Most recently, I showed up to a little backyard concert at a music studio with a big pot of oil and fried up fresh GF funnel cakes for the whole crowd. I love events like that because to most of the guests, they were excited to get what tastes like a regular funnel cake, but to the gluten free guests, they were SHOCKED and excited to find out that the fun food option was actually accessible and safe for them.

Looking to the future, I want to be a changemaker from gluten free folks in the LA community. I want to be part of the solution that not only makes gf food more ubiquitous, but also helps elevate the overall quality and experience we have with it. We should be allowed to want and expect the food available to us to be delicious. I want to challenge general perceptions of gf food and show the world that we’re not competing with the “real thing”, rather that you can make amazing, flavorful, good textured food using grains other than wheat. Every non gf person who tastes something of mine and exclaims “This is gluten free???!” is a tiny win towards my mission.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’m a die hard lover of LA and have no plans to leave. Whatever they are putting in the water, it’s working for me.

I love the attitude people have towards anything creative, the readiness to accept new things, the fact that I can surround myself with badass people, especially women, who are actively pursuing a goal or building something. I love that this is a land of dabblers – people who dip toes into various fields, projects, mediums, parts of town. There’s a sense of openness and endless possibility here, like your hard work can take you where you wanna go.

People say to me all the time “LA must be a great place to be gluten free”. They’re right and they’re not: Sure, we have tons of restaurants that will offer a gluten free bun (with an upcharge of $4 of course), and most coffee shops tout a sad slice of GF banana bread. But what’s frustrating for someone with a severe intolerance like me, is that most of these places don’t have cross-contamination procedures or often even really understand what gluten is.

I can’t tell you how many waiters have rolled their eyes when I say I have a gluten allergy because they assume I’m just on a fad diet. The constantly changing health food landscape in this city means that a restriction like “gluten free” has been co opted as a healthy lifestyle choice and often viewed as a nuisance by food establishments. In reality, the number of places where I feel I can eat safely is rather limited. That’s a big bummer as a lover of this city.

As a lover of food, I WISH that I could taste all the awesome food that LA has to offer. Wow, what I wouldn’t give to be able to eat all those amazing looking bagels or try a cronut. But that just helps me make my point – I want to be part of the movement that brings cool, exciting, food based events to this city that are accessible to everyone because they happen to be gluten free.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oryancooks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oryancooks/

 

 

 

Image Credits
Alexis Copithorne
Luba Hristova
Noah Lerner