Bodybuilder chef helps others to fuel up
Chef muscles way back from brink by creating tasty meals for those with active lifestyles
MINNEAPOLIS— Adrian De Los Rios’s light-bulb moment was sparked by a congee plate.
The chef and bodybuilder was cooking at Umami, a temporary Asian restaurant that the owners of Travail Kitchen and Amusements popped up for a few months in the fall of 2013. He was beyond tired of fuelling his workouts with a bland and tediously repetitive diet of chicken, rice and steamed broccoli.
But a congee platter, with 20 accoutrements? Bring it on.
“It was pickled ginger and edamame and all this healthy stuff, and I thought, ‘Why can’t I be eating like this?’ ” he said. “That’s when it first clicked that healthy food doesn’t have to suck. I turned to my friend and said, ‘We need to start a meal prep company for athletes. That’s our ticket.’ ”
Let’s back up for a moment. Grappling with drug and alcohol addiction, De Los Rios, 28, found refuge in the discipline, stability and work ethic of both bodybuilding and professional cooking. “Food saved me,” he said. Out of rehab, he started cooking at an Italian restaurant in St. Paul, and then another. On an off night, he and a buddy dropped into Travail. “And I was blown away,” he said. “I’d never experienced food like that.”
He began volunteering in the Travail kitchen on his days off and two months later he was offered a job. He stayed three years, a priceless onthe-job education in one of the state’s great restaurants.
Fast-forward to last winter. A gym buddy knew what De Los Rios did for a living and he made a simple suggestion: cook for me.
“He handed me a blank cheque,” De Los Rios said. “And I thought, ‘All right, I’ll bring him some meals.’ ”
He began by cooking out of his parents’ kitchen. Thanks to word-ofmouth magic, one client turned into two, three and more.
After several months of 90-hour weeks — and making do in a lessthen-optimal kitchen of a West St. Paul supermarket — De Los Rios approached his ex-bosses and mentors at Travail: could he make use of their facilities during the restaurant’s off hours?
The answer was yes. “He’s one of us,” Travail co-owner Mike Brown said. “Anyone who’s worked for you, you think of them as a sibling.”
Soon the chefs that De Los Rios calls “the three kings” — Brown and partners James Winberg and Bob Gerken — were critiquing De Los Rios’s recipes, providing practical advice and getting the Travail brain trust solving all kinds of logistical issues. When a nearby storefront café became available, they bought it and, after a few months of renovation, installed Performance Meals.
“I’ve been so lucky,” De Los Rios said. “The guys at the Travail, they want you to succeed.”
Today, Performance Meals has a staff of seven who are turning out 1,000 meals a week for 150 clients. The demographics are surprising. Few are bodybuilders. The majority are women. The microwave-ready menu — nutrition-packed, calorie-conscious — changes frequently. Early January offerings swing from pozole with braised chicken thighs, to flank steak fajitas with corn tortillas. There’s no formal structure. Meals can be or- dered a la carte as singles, at $10.95 (U.S.), or in packs of10 ($105.95) or 20 ($200.95).
De Los Rios’ gym buddy, Fabian Hoffner, a Minneapolis attorney, is currently buying three meals a day, six days a week, and said that he’s saving money — and improving his fitness level.
“Adrian is where ‘healthy food’ and ‘tastes good’ meets,” Hoffner said. “I don’t call it ‘replacement meals,’ because to me, ‘replacement’ equals ‘missing something.’ I’m not missing anything.”