Monique’s Dinner Club
Atlanta private chef Christina Glass will launch Monique’s Dinner Club in March of 2023.
Monique’s Dinner Club will be a subsection within Glass’s private catering. It’s a unique dining experience that differs from her everyday personal chef work, which consists of things on her catering menu done a family style. Glass primarily specializes in Creole soy food and smoked meat. The Dinner Club is a sit-down experience brought to a maximum of 12 people, where Glass serves dishes and handcrafted cocktails. Unlike her other work, this includes décor and “brings a Michelin-star restaurant to your home.”
“It’s just getting back to me doing more fine dining,” Glass explained. “Because that’s where my background is.”
Glass has been a chef since 2013 and graduated from the Art Institute of Indianapolis. She was head chef at Silver Creek in Urbana for years, but while she enjoyed it, Glass didn’t like the lack of breaks or vacation days. In addition, it was a stressful job with long hours and no relief. So she quit and moved to Atlanta, where she had more opportunities to live her dreams.
Her favorite thing about cooking is the joy people get from her food.
“I’ve always known I wanted to be a chef,” Glass said. “I knew at a very young age that I wanted to be a business owner. I didn’t like working for other people and always loved cooking.”
Glass cooked a lot when she was young at her grandmother’s house. She often found her grandmother’s cookbooks around the house, and her uncle would join her, teaching her new recipes every week. It has been her passion since day one.
“When she was a little girl, she watched cooking shows back-to-back,” Ramona Hursey said, Glass’s mother. “And we used to go to different restaurants, and she would order all these different types of foods to taste it and see the quality of it.”
According to her mother, for years every restaurant Glass would go to, she’d look for the main dish and how it was served. Then she’d take the techniques she observed and practice them on Hursey.
All her hard work paid off, but owning a private business brings challenges. Glass expressed how difficult it was doing everything herself; the shopping, the cooking, and the cleaning, but she finds it rewarding. She balances it all by staying organized with lists, notebooks, calendars, and frequent email checks. Glass takes pride in responding to clients in a timely fashion.
“I have a sous chef who is my best friend,” Glass said. “He works with me when I really need assistance, but he’s not into culinary like I am. So I’ve been thinking about finding somebody who’s maybe coming out of culinary school to teach them.”
Mar’ques Reed, her sous chef, enjoys working with her and admires her “go-getter” attitude. She’s a person who he’s watched set goals for herself and then accomplish those goals. Reed finds her to be an “awesome all-around chef.”
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