Cannabis Chef Roilty featured in Westword
Westword Magazine December 31, 2021
What started as teenage experiments with pot brownies has transformed into a career as a chef with a deep love for concocting cannabis-infused fine-dining experiences. Chef Jarod "with" Farina, a 39-year-old South Florida native, moved to Denver around eight years ago to pursue his interest in the growing culinary trade. Over the years, his various travels, prize winnings and television appearances have allowed him to grow into one of Colorado's most creative culinary pioneers.
Today, Farina's company, Dine with Roilty, comprises his private chef service, which specializes in multi-course infused dinners, and cannabis cooking classes of all levels. His dishes continue to change as his cooking style shifts with every new technique he encounters. We caught up with Farina to see how his journey began, the relationships he's made along the way, and where he sees the business taking him in the near future.
Westword: How and where did you get started in the culinary world and discover your passion for cannabis?
Jarod Farina: My passion for cannabis started at an early age. We were messing around back in the day with edibles and stuff, but I never thought that I’d be on this path. As far as culinary goes, I worked in the restaurant industry a lot when I was younger. One of my first jobs was in the dining industry, but I only worked front-of-house, being a server, host, bartender, all that kind of stuff. ... I did a lot of other things [deejaying, computer repairs], and then I started competing in hash-making competitions, won that, and that brought me to Denver and the cannabis industry. Then we had a big dinner one night, and we decided to infuse it.
It was for New Year’s Eve, and we had a bunch of friends over, and everybody had a really good time. That was about the same time Bong Appétit was getting popular. Then I saw the High Times Top Cannabis Chef competition and decided to enter, and that’s when I started along this path. What really kicked me off in it, though, is that my wife and I travel the world and eat at all the fine-dining restaurants we can. That’s our studying. We implement flavor profiles and techniques and textures and things like that into our dishes. So I do a lot of traveling and research in different restaurants from some of the top chefs in the world.