Lonjevity's New Chef Brings A World of Experience to the Table

[Amy Warren, LMHC / WQ Mag Columnist]

Roles were a bit reversed in Adriel Zahniser’s family. It wasn’t her parents who said “Eat your greens.” It was Adriel who taught her parents to eat healthy. As a ballerina, Adriel learned early on that she had to watch what she ate. Eating her father’s Italian cooking or her mother’s down-home cooking wasn’t going to cut it.

So as a teen, she was in the kitchen making her own meals, recreating the same dishes her parents made to make them less fattening. In 10th grade, a course in Culinary Nutrition inspired her interest in the nutritional element of cooking and got her up and running towards the career she realizes today as the new head chef at Lonjevity Superfood Fusion Café.

Adriel graduated from Johnson and Wales University where she attained an associate degree in Culinary Arts and a bachelor’s degree Culinary Nutrition. After graduation, she furthered her culinary education by traveling and cooking throughout Europe where she experienced different cultures and learned different styles of cooking. Not many people can say they catered the World Cup in Germany and cooked for kings and princes in the Middle East. But Adriel did this and more, cooking at spas, catering huge sport events and working in European restaurants. Her favorite culinary destination was Australia where the cuisine was light, fresh and a fusion of everything from Thai to Caribbean.

Adriel maintains the fusion style of cooking she learned abroad. It’s important to her for diners to be just as excited about what they eat as she is. She makes it her mission to create the best tasting food you can eat that’s simultaneously good for your body. Adriel is constantly inventing new recipes.

You’ll discover some of her best inventions by ordering the daily specials at Lonjevity Café and watching for menu changes. You’ll also find some menu items have been modified to make them even tastier. For Adriel, the way to teach people to eat healthy is to give them good-tasting food, making her the perfect chef choice for Lonjevity Café whose mission has always been to teach people to eat better and live healthier.

Prior to accepting her position at Lonjevity Cafe, Adriel was the head chef at Veggie Magic Cafe. Although Veggie Magic was a raw food vegetarian restaurant, she isn’t a vegetarian. She knows that a good chef has to keep her palate open. Her own diet focuses on lots of fruits, vegetables, lean meats and seafood. However, her arrival at Lonjevity Café does mean you’ll find more vegetarian options on an up-and-coming separate vegetarian menu and a vegetarian/vegan pizza night every Tuesday.

Today, Adriel’s parents do what all good children… uh, parents…do. They follow their daughter’s model of healthy eating. After you try Adriel’s fresh and healthy cuisine at Lonjevity Café, you may want to follow her ways, too. It is, after all, befitting of kings.

[Beth Littman-Quinn]

Congratulations to Adriel. Looking forward to eating at Lonjevity again! Please check out our review of Lonjevity.

[Maureen Maguire]

Please keep my fave seven bean/shrimp/avocado salad!

[Patti Stilson]

Sounds amazing. I am looking forward to visiting your restaurant soon.

[Barbara Gail]

Congratulations! Sounds delish, and we hope to come and taste your cuisine one day soon!

[Gerry Davies MD]

Adriel brings such care, attention and high moral standards to everything she does and has taken us to a level that very few restaurants have achieved. You have to try if you haven't been before and if you have been before for sure you have to visit again to see the improvements