David Parisi began working around food at age 16. Thirty-five years later, he is now AVI Foodsystems’ resident director for Bryant University. Originally from Michigan, Parisi grew up in Tennessee and lived in various places before ending up in Rhode Island. He now has a wife, two kids, and has resided in the Ocean State for 15 years. Excited to meet members of Bryant’s community, he recently shared a bit about himself — including his favorite AVI dish and why he entered the culinary arts.
Q: What made you want to go into the culinary industry?
A: My mom’s a really good cook, and we always ate well at home growing up. We’d have scalloped potatoes and ham, mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy, spaghetti and meatballs, and meatloaf. The food tasted good, and it was inspiring to me because it was something I understood and picked up naturally.
Q: What roles have you held at AVI and elsewhere?
A: One thing I’m proud of is I spent 10 years as an executive chef at the New York Yacht Club. We did everything from hamburgers and hotdogs for 300 people up to that fine dining experience — seven to nine courses paired with wine.
I started with AVI about 10 minutes before the pandemic started. I was at Wellesley College through COVID-19 and afterward I took a support role helping out many of the company’s higher education and healthcare accounts. Before starting at Bryant, I was at an automotive manufacturing facility in Alabama helping them adjust their menus and improve the quality of what they did.
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Q: What is your favorite AVI dish?
A: If you were to ask any of my colleagues what my favorite dish is, they are probably going to say chicken tinga. It’s a recipe that my wife makes at home and, whenever she has a really good recipe, I bring it to work and get it into the system. Chicken tinga is braised chicken with sauteed onions, garlic, chipotle, and tomato. It will be part of the mix over at Tupper’s because it’s so delicious. In the wintertime, we eat bowls of that stuff at home. We make it ahead of time, throw it in the freezer and, when we don’t feel like cooking, we pull it out, put it in the microwave and it’s good to go.
Q: What does your usual workday look like?
A: I like to be here between 7 and 7:30 a.m. I’ll typically walk through, greet everybody, and get a feel for what the vibe is for the day. My job is to facilitate, so I have to be the one who eliminates the problems so people can get their work done easier, better, and faster.
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Q: When you’re not working, what do you enjoy doing?
A: I’ve got two boys who keep me busy. My family and I spend a lot of time in Vermont where we’ll hike, bike, kayak, swim, and go to rivers and jump off rocks. In the winter, we spend a lot of time skiing. I also enjoy working in the yard and finding little projects to work on.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: The existing team we came into is friendly, excited, smart, and funny. They like what they do and are receptive to the changes we’re making. The community and guests we’ve met are also appreciative of what we've done, and the folks that we work with in Student Affairs are 110 percent invested and supportive.
You don't often get a place where you can walk in, and all the pieces are in place. It really doesn’t happen as well as it is happening here, so I'm excited that we’ve got this in front of us and we can start to make changes. We can really push this to being a truly unique dining experience for the community.
