Ana Ortiz is an innovative pastry chef, food writer, and founder of Day Into Night — a Brooklyn-based bespoke catering company. In her own words, she is also a "professional dinner party thrower" because she loves celebrations and cooking for people.
Ana spent most of her 20s and early 30s following a different career trajectory, but she always knew food was her true calling, and once she embraced it, there was no looking back.
Ana is a transplanted New Yorker who grew up in Puerto Rico and has cooked in kitchens across the U.S. and France. Her childhood home and her grandmother's Spanish cooking have been her biggest culinary influences, and her earliest food memory is eating a bowl of rice when she was 3 years old.
Inspired by seasonality, she strives to incorporate freshness into her own kitchen. A passionate chef, she cooks because she loves connecting with people through food, which is why for her, a great meal is not just about ingredients, but who you eat it with and where. That is the reason her favorite ingredients are three basics — salt, olive oil, and lemons.
Now she spends most of her days running her catering company and working with pastries and desserts like the almond olive cake she writes about in her column.
