Page 56 - University of Delaware Messenger Alumni Magazine

Tampakis
Maria
A wonderful ‘Kitchen Nightmare’
As soon as she got a taste of the full-throttle kitchen rush at UD’s Vita Nova restaurant, Maria Tampakis saw her destiny.
She would be a chef, she vowed as a young hospitality management student. She would work for some of the world’s top restaurateurs, and become a leader herself in the flaming hot world of fine dining.
And so she did.
Tampakis, BE08, soared rapidly into the upper echelons of cooking after leaving UD, first at the four-star Jean-Georges in New York City, then overseas at celebrity chef Heston
Blumenthal’s London restaurant, Dinner (named seventh best on Earth in 2015 by the global consulting firm Deloitte).
She went on to serve as head chef, television assistant and all-around wonder-woman for the famously hot-headed cook, Gordon Ramsay. “It was the hardest year of my life,” Tampakis says of opening Ramsay’s Heddon Street Kitchen in 2014, where she stood as the youngest female head chef in London. “On top of working at the restaurant 70-80 hours a week, I traveled three months, helping film Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon.
“It was very high-demand, but you
Tempakis (left) at dinner to celebrate the 25th anniversary of UD's hospitality program.
wanted to succeed, because you knew who you worked for,” says Tampakis, who has since left London’s high-wire act to work for the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, her “other” alma mater.
“At UD, I learned to enjoy feeling the pressure, feeling the joy when you see people happy with your food. I like that, and I always wanted more,” she says. “I have far surpassed the goals I wanted to achieve.” z
telephone rang, he developed an 80-person call center to process all phoned-in orders. It was one of hundreds of changes to revamp the customer experience and enhance the operations.
Lasus, who serves as partner and a member of Insomnia’s board, as well as a member of UD's Hospitality Leadership Advisory Board, credits his UD education as “legit preparation for my career.”
In his five years with the company, Insomnia has grown from 14 shops in eight states to a cookie juggernaut with 120 stores across 33 states, including one right on Newark’s Main Street.
“Cookies stand the test of time,”
he says. “And we want to be the master of cookies.” z
Lasus
The cookie master
Mix together late-night cravings, more than 100 cities and college towns, and a store that sells and delivers warm cookies until 3 a.m., and you’ve got quite the recipe for success.
Just ask David Lasus, BE03. When he began working at Insomnia Cookies in July 2011 as director of operations, he could taste the potential. “I knew there was a great idea,” he says. “We just
David
54 University of Delaware Messenger
needed to make the model scalable.” Quickly promoted to chief operating
officer just months after coming on board, that’s exactly what he did. “Department by department, we redid almost every process,” says Lasus. For instance, rather than compromising in-person customer service each time the
DUANE PERRY