Meet Kriselle Hadad | Co-Founder of il Maestro Pizzaiolo

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kriselle Hadad and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kriselle, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
As all entrepreneurs know, the work-life balance is completely skewed when you establish a new business. It’s heavy on the work end and light on the living and it is a very complex balancing act. In the hospitality industry when you own a catering company you have to work nights and weekends so you’re basically working whenever others are seeking to have fun and blow some steam. That is why it’s so important to really be passionate with your work and fall in love with it, so that you are able to enjoy it throughly. The catering business is a very physically demanding line if work, long hours and late night events plus all the prep work and the mise en place for the food we cater is very complex. In my experience the way I think about the balance between work and life is to flow with it because it’s so hard to achieve, it will most certainly be off at times and you have to be understanding with your personal situation and be compassionate with yourself. You have to allow yourself to loose it in order to get it back sometimes and that’s just the way that works.

What should our readers know about your business?
Il Maestro Pizzaiolo is a specialty gourmet catering focused on providing patrons gourmet pizzas and calzones in the comfort of their own home. During the pandemic we recognized that people were craving restaurant grade pizza, freshly baked right out of the oven, that’s why we decided to bring the pizzeria to them. That’s why our slogan is Fatta in Casa con Amore, which translates to made at home with love. Due to the sanitary and health restrictions imposed by the CDC people could not afford to go to pizzerias, and that is why we created a set up mobile and versatile enough to accommodate small crowds and still turn a commercial profit. We experimented and tested our dough recipe for nearly 5 months before our launch and have done our due diligence to find only the best quality ingredients to go into our culinary creations. Our superior level of service combined with an extensive quality control process is what assures our clients that their pizzas will be as near to perfection as they can be. The main lesson that we have learned throughout the course of our endeavor is that good honest work is always repaid plentifully, if you do things the right way you will be rewarded accordingly, that is why day in and day out we treat each event and each patron as our first event and we’re always there to impress.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If my best friend would be visiting the city I would have a ton of things to do, we would start off our morning at true baristas for some legit coffee and a serious people watching spot. We would then have breakfast at Flour & Weirdoughs in Key Biscayne my favorite breakfast spot ever,, pro-tip the “It’s brisket b*tch” croissant is a must have, seriously. Lunch would definitely turn to Lung Yai thai tapas to avoid the crowd and the long lines formed at dinner. For a nice afternoon snack we would definitely visit Night owl cookies to make sure we satisfy our sweet cravings followed by a nice stroll in the design district. For dinner if all that food wasn’t already enough we would close out our wonderful day at Mandolin Aegean Bistro, where I celebrate my anniversary every year with my husband and a nice carafe of white sangria.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate this shoutout to my husband, since he was the one who pushed me out of my comfort zone and invited me to join him in this project. The beginning of this journey was not easy and it is not easy now but we make a great team and we complement each other both during our working hours and at home.

Website: www.ilmaestropizzaiolo.com

Instagram: @ilmaestropizzaiolo

Facebook: @ilmaestropizzaiolo