UB’s Executive Chef Amelia redefines campus dining

Amelia Ruiz, UB’s nationally recognized executive chef, has just finished explaining her overarching philosophy on how good food is all about “happiness.” From the attitude of the person taking orders, to the friendly cashier, to the fresh ingredients and family recipes, a meal can change the whole day, she says.

Ruiz has made this her mission. Whether it’s the award-winning Sabor Latino restaurant in the Student Union with recipes she adopted from her mother’s kitchen, or the scratch-made quality she expects at Pan Asia or Tikka Table at One World Café, Ruiz mixes her unblinking standards with infectious enthusiasm and commitment to making a connection with her staff and customers, all through that universal connector — food.

In character, Ruiz offers her visitor something to eat. Food isn’t necessary, but it’s a hot late-summer day and she returns with a perfectly iced Diet Coke. It just hits the spot, and sure enough, the tables in One World Café suddenly becomes more joyful.

“It’s about the love,” Ruiz says. “It’s all about the love.”

Attention students, faculty, staff and anyone else wandering UB’s campuses looking to eat: Amelia Ruiz is enhancing your lives. Ruiz is the point person for eating better than you would expect in an institutional setting, sometimes a lot better.

Since working up the ranks of UB’s Campus Dining and Shops, Ruiz has become the architect, enforcer and cheerleader for what could be a UB food resurgence. A certified executive chef through the American Culinary Federation, which she earned while working for Campus Dining and Shops, Ruiz aims to present a UB food experience that would make her mother proud.

“You had a bad day, maybe your class went long,” says Ruiz. “Then you grab a homecooked meal, sit down and eat, and it could change your whole day.”

If those studies showing students decide where to attend college at least partially based on its food can be trusted, the university is building a major selling point. And if Ruiz gets her way, a whole lot of UB citizens are about to get a lot happier.

First, her credentials. Ruiz is fresh off a glowing article in Foodservice Director celebrating her winning the Gold Award and then the Grand Prize for Retail Sales – Single Concept of the Year at the National Association of College and University Food Service.

Ruiz’s team won for Sabor Latino, the restaurant she conceived and spearheaded that serves everything from hand-pressed empanadas and arepas to rice and beans, Cubano sandwiches and tres leches cake, almost all from homemade and family recipes.

“I am so proud of that menu,” says Ruiz. “I hold that near and dear to my heart. I had a lot of fun researching and putting that menu together and testing it. I was out talking to students when the restaurant opened, and one student said he was from Mexico, and he ate the pozole soup and he said it reminded him of home.

“I probably told every single person I knew what he said. I was just so proud to know he came from Mexico and probably grew up eating that and he enjoyed it just as much as he would have at home.”

The accolades keep coming. UB’s Campus Dining and Shops culinary team earned a gold medal this summer at the American Culinary Federation collegiate competition, one of the nation’s premier contests for colleges and universities at the University of Massachusetts.

The awards and honors tell only part of the story. On a recent late-summer morning, Ruiz circulated among more than 200 Campus Dining and Shops workers who had been summoned for the annual cooks’ training and start-up meeting in Ellicott Food Court and Crossroads Culinary Center. The eclectic activities included knife safety, therapy dogs, food service worker yoga, Food Safety and Allergen Bingo, and benefits. Her mission that morning: “hyping up” her colleagues as a reminder you are there to do your job well, but also to have fun.

“We need them excited because we are going to be serving a lot of people in a short amount of time,” Ruiz says. “We need them to come back energized and ready to go.”

“If you aren’t smiling, I don’t know. We have to get the smile out of you.”

Walking with her through the crowded halls is a workshop in team building. One after another, Ruiz engages with the workers, remembering faces, names and details with remarkable clarity and patience.

She greets Michelle, a lead cook at One World Café. She and Ruiz have a history of supporting each other through challenges. During COVID, they started telling each other jokes each time they saw each other, including the latest this morning on Ruiz’s phone. “We never stopped doing it because it just made the day a little better,” Ruiz says.

There’s Marvin, lead cook at Goodyear Dining Hall who Ruiz has known for years. His son had just gotten his driving permit. Ruiz has a nice long talk about children and their summers with Equashia, lead cook at One World Café.

This went on and on.

Anyone not feeling happiness and love must answer to Ruiz.

“Her passion, her way of dealing with people, how she trains people,” Lauren Brantley, human resources director for Campus Dining and Shops, says when asked what is so special about Ruiz. “She coaches them, builds them up. I wish everyone had that passion, that drive. She’s never stopped. She’s what every employer wants.

“Her face is known and respected by everyone in this organization,” says Brantley. “As she grew from assistant kitchen manager to chef manager in CCC, to assistant executive chef and now executive chef, she pushed herself to get those credentials and compete. But she made those human connections with every one of our campus operations.”

Ruiz continues to move forward by keeping up with food trends, including popular flavor profiles like “swicy,” a combination of sweet and spicy, while still staying true to UB favorites like the iconic UB Cookie — “our staple, our signature,” she says.

But for Ruiz, food is more than following trends. Remember her serving the beverage with the exact amount of ice on an otherwise non-descript summer afternoon. The essential element of serving food is the love that goes into it.

“Everyone always asks what the secret ingredient is,” she says. “I tell them it was made with love.

“When I was making the pozole, I was thinking about memories of the soup. I was thinking about how the soup makes me feel when I eat it. It brings back childhood memories.

“So, when you see someone eating your food and if the room is silent, you know you did a great job. If you see everyone smiling and happy, that’s a gathering point. It’s really about community.”