The cannabis chef

Meet the Colorado cook bringing fine-dining cannabis cuisine into the mainstream spotlight (and your home)

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It was New Years Eve 2015. The ball hadn’t dropped yet in New York, but in Colorado it was going down at Chef Jarod “Roilty” Farina’s house. The chef and his wife were throwing a dinner party with friends and cannabis industry entrepreneurs to celebrate the holiday. It was a party that would change Farina’s life. 

He’d been in the dining industry all his life, he says. All over it: in the front of the house, in the back of the house, running catering companies, learning how to make pasta in Italy, and taking cooking classes in Paris. Food was always something Farina had a natural curiosity for, and cooking had always been one of his sharpest artistic talents. 

But he’d never thought to combine that with his other lifelong passion, until that New Year’s party seven years ago. 

“That was the first time we tried infused savory dishes,” Farina says.

He made a cannabis encrusted prime rib, cannabutter mashed potatoes, and an infused green bean casserole. It was a New Year’s feast — and a highly potent one. According to Farina, “Literally everything was infused.” 

That was the night it all clicked in Farina’s mind. A seed had been planted that would grow into a new career, his very own business: Dine with Roilty — a fine-dining event company offering multi-course infused (and non-infused) dinner experiences.

He’s learned a lot about cooking with cannabis in the years since. He won High Times’ Top Cannabis Chef award. He’s competed on the Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay and Chopped 420, and was featured on NBC News. Not only has his technique evolved, but he’s refined his canna-dining experience curations. 

“That [New Year’s] meal might have gotten you totally blasted,” Farina admits. He was just starting out and learning how best to cook full meals infused with cannabis. Everyone at Farina’s party loved it, he says; but for the average Joe it might have been a heavy dose. 

“For the dinners that we offer now, we do tableside infusions,” Farina says. “We cater to each and every person, offering low doses, medium doses, anywhere you want to get, basically, on a per-person, per-course basis.”

Chef Farina and his team will come to your Airbnb, your home, or your event space and provide a three- to seven-course infused, fine-dining experience. 

“I basically make an infused olive oil that I can drop or squirt, depending on the client,” he says. “That’s something people are really into.”

Don’t let that fool you, though. Because while Chef Farina is sometimes just drizzling a couple of drops of cannabis-infused olive oil over the different courses on his menu, that’s the bare minimum of his canna-cuisine artistry. His favorite dish to make is his “cannaleaf pasta experience,” which is far more involved and draws upon his Italian pasta-making education and heritage. 

“We put fresh cannabis leaves inside of [homemade pasta] and then laminate it so you can see the leaves inside the pasta dough,” Farina says. “We cut that into fettuccine and toss it in a beautiful herb sauce … garnished with grated cannabis over top.” 

“It’s a full-on cannabis experience,” Farina says. “I don’t think you can get that anywhere else.”

Other dishes on his menu include pomodoro with fresh vegetables in a homemade tomato sauce, a honey-soy glazed salmon with garlic and lemon, roasted duck breast with rosemary and raspberry beurre blanc, or garlic herb crusted lamb chops. This list doesn’t even touch his extensive appetizer and dessert offerings.

Dine with Roilty also offers cooking classes, for aspiring cannabis chefs who want to whip up their own culinary creations — infused or not. You can also visit the Dine with Roilty website and pursue his recipes page, where the chef shares some of his secrets and even has a video detailing how to make his butter and oil infusions. 

Farina loves sharing his food. He loves cooking for parties of people that want to have a good time, and who appreciate both cannabis and good food just as much as he does. It’s one of the best parts of his job, he says. 

“Food is my art form,” Farina says. “I can’t draw and I can’t paint, but I can create beautiful food on a plate and it’s something that I get to share with all these people that I get to meet. And it’s a really great, energized experience with cannabis and food. It’s something that I love each and every day.”