Short bio

Michelle Reha is a Columbus private chef who spent fifteen years as a touring circus aerialist and fire performer before turning her lifelong love of Italian home cooking into a career. Escoffier-trained, she brings a performer’s sense of occasion to comforting, heartfelt food built around family, nostalgia and the joy of a shared table.

Bio

Michelle Reha was, as she puts it, born into her love of food — raised in a close-knit Italian family where food was a love language and no one left the table when dinner was done. Some of her happiest childhood memories are of learning the “old-school” way beside her grandmother, aunts and mother, and that warmth still sits at the heart of everything she cooks.

At nineteen she moved to Los Angeles to chase a different dream — and ran away with the circus. For the next fifteen years she toured the country as an aerialist and fire performer, and all the while kept her culinary flame alive, baking cookies and cooking for fellow performers between shows.

When the pandemic brought the shows to a halt, Michelle asked herself what else let her be truly creative — and the answer was obvious. She enrolled in culinary school, earning an Associate’s degree in Culinary Arts from Auguste Escoffier, then sharpened her craft through internships and catering while cooking for friends and family along the way.

Her cooking is rooted in traditional Italian recipes brought to life with contemporary technique, reaching into the American and Mexican flavours she loves too. The result is food that feels like comfort and celebration at once — generous, nostalgic and made to be shared, exactly the way she grew up eating.

Fifteen years on stage taught Michelle that a great experience is about more than what’s in front of you — and she brings that same sense of occasion to the table, treating each dish as a story that evokes warmth and nostalgia. What she loves most is the moment people gather to eat with the ones they love, and the togetherness a shared meal creates.

Now working as a private chef in Columbus, Michelle curates personalised dining experiences that celebrate the connection between people and food. Her goal is simple: to pour the same familial love she felt in her childhood kitchen into every plate, turning an ordinary dinner into a warm, memorable occasion.