Celebrity chef Michael Mina has certainly conquered the world of haute cuisine. Through his Mina Group, he operates more than a dozen award-winning high end restaurants around the world, with his namesake eateries in San Francisco and Las Vegas regularly earning Michelin stars.
But now he is setting out to conquer a different realm: The web. Along with his co-founder business partner Tanya Melillo, Mina has launched a startup called Cook Taste Eat that aims to be the online destination for all things food, ingredients, and recipes.
Cook Taste Eat is essentially a digital media company, creating and churning out super high-quality videos and content with an array of celebrity guests. The result is a bit Food Network, a bit Gourmet Magazine (RIP), with a splash of “how-to” info regarding kitchen basics — but with a more high end feel and slightly younger vibe, and all in one sleekly designed destination. It’s also got full tech startup cred, with an in-house engineering team based in San Francisco and venture capital funding from Harrison Metal, SV Angel, Khosla Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Blumberg Capital.
It’s the kind of thing that you’ve got to see to really understand, so we were glad to have the opportunity to stop by the Viking Showroom in Hayward, California where Cook Taste Eat films its segments to get a first-hand look at the company and its vision. Watch the video embedded above to hear Mina and Melillo give us the rundown on what they’re aiming to bring to the web, why now is the time for food-oriented content to come online, how running a restaurant compares to running a startup, and much more.