Chef Alex Thomopoulos has turned a love of and gift for making people laugh and making great, healthy food into a winning career combination. Currently, she’s the chef of the Venice café Great White, which launched in 2017, where she’s crafting good-for-you dishes like breakfast corn fritters with charred avocado salsa and fresh greens, or a lunchtime Green Grain Bowl of charred fava beans, Brussels sprouts, pickled red onion, cotija cheese, house-made pesto, and quinoa.

Her start, though, was more in the laughter department. She studied comedy with Second City Hollywood and at The Groundlings, and Upright Citizen Brigade, and was “in the game” as a stand-up comic in her early twenties. She also waitressed and bartended during those years, and after finding the comedy gigs difficult, and her love for spending time in the kitchens of the clubs almost more than the hard-knocks life of being onstage, Thomopoulos went to the International Culinary School at the Art Institute. She then became a private chef and caterer in L.A., and a stint in Nashville followed.

But being the daughter of Cristina Ferrare, a model, cookbook author, and television host, and Anthony Thomopoulos, a TV and film executive, Alex still had entertainment in her blood. Returning to Los Angeles, she took her talent and food knowledge and put it to use as a blogger. Focusing on gluten-free cooking, as someone with celiac disease who wants to help others find delicious food solutions, she began AlexTCooks.com. Video followed, with The Original HUNGRY’s You Tube shows “Bites & Booze: Gluten Free” and “Gluten Free with Alex T.” She has been a recurring guest and guest co-host of Hallmark Channel’s Home and Family Show and has appeared on Bravo TV’s digital series “Going Off the Menu.”