How Aaron Elliott Went from Touring Punk Drummer to the Coolest Vegan Chef in L.A.
Scenes from a day at home with the Meal Ticket boss
Graphic design courtesy of Thomas Euyang
Like so many professional chefs, Aaron Elliott spent his early days in a restaurant. The path veers from here, though, as he spent most of his young days in Pittsburgh trying to get out of the duties assigned to him while working at his parents’ Italian restaurant. Growing up in the football-obsessed suburb of Aliquippa, Elliott did whatever was needed at the restaurant. He bussed tables, learned the ins and outs of running a business, and quickly figured out that life as a restauranter was very much not his vibe.
Elliott was a punk in a land of jocks, and that ideology led him to veganism, a choice his parents were okay with but didn’t stray from their choices to accommodate. “I went vegetarian in 1999 when I was 13, and then that’s when I started figuring out what I needed to do to sustain myself,” Elliott explained to me at his lovely home in the Leimert Park neighborhood of LA. But food wasn’t Aaron’s passion. He was a drummer—knew he wanted to be one and nothing could change his mind. How did he go from touring punk drummer to personal chef for Ari Emanuel, James Cameron, Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian and founder of Meal Ticket, the hottest meal delivery service in Los Angeles? Simple. A rice cooker, an early 2000s baseball star, and that unflinching dedication to his spiritual ethos.
Elliott’s career as a professional punk drummer began a week after he graduated high school, but the seeds were planted two years earlier. “I tried out for this band called The Escape Engine one weekend when I was 16. Afterwards, they were like, ‘What do you have going on next week?’” Elliott, unfortunately, had to clarify that when he answered “school,” he didn’t mean college. He still had to complete the 11th grade and move onto 12th.
The dudes in the band told him to give them a heads up when he graduated, and he did. A week after finishing up school, he was on the road with The Escape Engine, bouncing across the country and between the band’s home base in Jersey and his in Pittsburgh. When that band ended, he hopped onto another project. And another. He was set on being a hired gun. It was an era — the early 2000s — in which touring punk drummer could be a sustainable career. Unimaginable today.
About that important rice cooker. By the time Elliott turned 19 or 20, he was a full-on health nut. He wasn’t one of those vegans who subsists on french fries and onion rings. He had joined a band based out of Orange County, California, and after soundchecks before gigs he would take his cooker out of the van and make some lentils and rice. One of his bandmates had a brother, who also happened to be a straightedge vegan. He was also a major league pitcher. Anyone who followed baseball in the early 2000s will remember C.J. Wilson, an at-times dominant lefty who was a very good starter for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Texas Rangers.
He met Wilson at a Texas gig, and one of Elliott’s friends got hired by Wilson to be his personal assistant. When the band broke up, Aaron joined the team, cooking for C.J. when the Rangers were at home and going back to his newly established hometown of Los Angeles when the team hit the road. A year into his gig with Wilson, the pitcher signed a deal with the Angels. Things, to put it extremely dumbly, began cooking for Elliott.
“I started getting more private chef gigs. I got a job at a bakery. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m taking this seriously.’” He went from winging vegan meals for a professional pitcher to figuring out how to turn his love of meatless meals into his main source of income. Touring was getting exhausting, the grind didn’t really seem worth it anymore. Wilson’s schedule was flexible, so Elliott kept on taking on more gigs. “He would have parties at his house and people would be like, ‘Hey, I work for so-and-so. They’re also vegan, they need a chef.’ It quickly grew through word of mouth recommendations.”
So, after growing up in a restaurant with zero desire to cook, fending for himself as a vegan in a family of meat eaters, Elliott finally found his second calling. He began pouring all of his energy into becoming a chef.
Remember that thing I mentioned earlier? Aaron’s unflinching dedication to his ethos? It pays to stick to your guns, kids. While working for Wilson, Elliott got a trial run as James Cameron’s personal chef. “They asked me to make some meat for somebody that was staying there. I was like, ‘Oh, sorry, I’m a vegan. I’m a vegan before I’m a chef.’” It turns out that philosophy aligned with what Cameron was all about, and he was hired full-time that very day.
Aaron traveled with Cameron to New Zealand for months at a time, keeping him fed during strenuous 16 hour days. He was employed by the Avatar filmmaker for six years, and it was the director’s personal interest in his employees that helped Elliott develop even further as a chef.
“James was really big on professional development for everybody that worked for him. I approached them and was like, ‘Hey, I want to go work at this restaurant in Copenhagen, and it's a 13 week internship.’” Done. Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, paid for the months-long internship at the famed Noma. When he returned he would still have his job, and he would probably cook up some of the best meals they ever tasted. A win-win if you can afford it.
While I didn’t ask Elliott to draw an explicit line from his time as a touring drummer to life at Noma, I imagine the road helped get him ready for what he was going to endure during the intensive program. What did it entail, exactly? “18 hour days, five days in a row. Two days off. On Saturday night the restaurant closes. All the guests are out of there by midnight. At midnight, the deep clean starts. That's the whole staff.” Hands and knees, scrubbing with toothbrushes. I guess that’s what it takes to rack up three Michelin stars.
After cleaning the real fun begins. “At 2:00, they do this thing called Saturday Night Projects. One chef from each station presents a dish that they came up with. This is at 2:00 AM on Saturday after your 80 hour work week.” The chefs from each station would critique the food item, encouraged to not hold back either in praise or disdain. “None of this is for new menu items. This is all for René [Redzepi, Noma co-owner and chef] to get his people to be better.” In this way, there are some similarities between his Noma boss and Titanic employer.
It’s at this point in our conversation that Elliott’s impeccable playlist coming through the speakers cues up Fugazi’s “Waiting Room.” Could this dude be any cooler? Back to it…
Due to some visa issues, Elliott had to end his internship early, before cooking staff meal or facing a critique. It was a bummer, but didn’t dampen what became a formative moment in his cooking career. He got back to LA and, ironically, enough, was itching to get into the family business. “My little brother has worked in the restaurant industry his whole life too. He’s front of house, so we wanted to open up a restaurant together.” Trying to navigate this towards the end of the 2010s, while working for James Cameron, and taking on work as Ari Emmanuel’s chef, wasn’t feasible. Things slowed down a bit in the spring of 2020, and they signed a lease for a restaurant space in West Adams. Three days later, COVID hit. The brother-owned restaurant remains a dream.
Being a private chef has always been an excellent gig for Elliott, but the dude is a grinder, a worker, a dreamer. He’s always been destined for his own show. Enter: Meal Ticket.
“When I was feeling unfulfilled as a private chef, I would tell myself that it was always working towards opening a restaurant. When that was off the table, it was like, ‘What the fuck am I going to do?’” Over the holiday season in 2023, he started Meal Ticket. The first service arrived in homes across LA on January 1, 2024. The first few editions were all instinct. “I sent an email out to 10 people I know would benefit from it. Four or five wrote back and we’re like, ‘Yeah, I’ll try it.’ I sent out a menu and just started on the first Monday of 2024.” Imagine being one of those five that didn’t write back? Always respond to emails, people!
Elliott has hired a small team, including Chef Jason Stefanko, who was in the prep kitchen behind Elliott’s house while we chatted. The kitchen came after one too many stressful prep weeks in his house, and at the behest of his wife, Elliott began building his own addition in the backyard to create Meal Ticket offerings.
Without ever expecting this to be the case, Meal Ticket has helped Aaron envision what it might be like to actually open a restaurant. “I didn’t know that it was going to be a good preview to opening a restaurant. I have employees and for the first time ever, I’m worrying about food costs. The nice thing about being a private chef is that whatever it costs, it costs.” Meal Ticket isn’t Elliott’s main source of income, but he works at it like it’s a full time job. I don’t understand how the dude sleeps.
“Friday, I write a shopping list. Saturday is shopping at the markets. Sunday, Jason will hit the Hollywood market on his way in. Sunday is a 10 hour prep, day. On Monday, Jason and I start at seven and work about 12 hours.” When that’s done, he takes a beat, and then begins writing the next week’s menu on Tuesday nights. I’m exhausted after having written that down.
Between being a punk drummer and a professional chef, it’s clear that Elliott is kind of insane in an extremely good way. He’s spent plenty of time figuring out where this drive comes from. “I learned this during my internship at Noma. I’m addicted to the feeling of being exhausted.” I know exactly what he means. You know when you have a hard workout, or go for a long bike ride, or play 36 holes of golf, or just do a ton of stuff and you’re just drained? But it feels amazing? That’s Elliott every day. Who needs booze or drugs when you can get that kind of high every day? “Going to sleep after an 80 hour work week is the best feeling I’ve ever felt. It’s just something I’m always chasing.”
As for me? I’m chasing Meal Ticket, or at least vegan food as good as the meal Elliott cooked up for me when I visited his home and kitchen. I would happily, eagerly ditch meat if I could consistently find food this good (God forbid I learn to cook well).
On the menu? A crispy artichoke sandwich with the artichoke heart steamed, peeled, and marinated in pickle juice then fried in a mochiko flour batter. It was tossed with fermented Fresno Buffalo sauce and topped with slaw, house pickles, and ranch. The Fresno Buffalo sauce made the skin underneath my eyelids sweat, but it was so damn good. For an encore Elliott and Chef Jason cooked up tortellinis stuffed with sweet potato puree and cultured cashew ricotta. It was topped with a maple sage butter sauce. Like I said, if I could always eat like this I would never eat meat again. That’s kind of the goal with Meal Ticket, I think. Hell, even my parents, decidedly not vegans, had an absolutely delightful time working through the six meals Elliott so generously sent them.
Regardless if he converts his diners to veganism or simply offers Meal Ticket recipients a break from overconsumption of meat, Aaron Elliott is really comfortable with how this whimsical idea has settled into its role in the LA food community. It’s funny how the one thing Elliott knew he always wanted to do (drum) led him to the actual thing he now dedicates his life to (cook).
“This fell into my lap,” he explains. It’s all thanks to a rice cooker and some natural talent working that thing. Right place, right time, fate, horrifying randomness, something in between. My romantic heart thinks Aaron was led to this, and now it occupies every ounce of his being. It’s beautiful.
“I can't ever shut it off and I’m not trying to shut it off,” he says towards the end of our conversation. To hear someone speak about being so deeply in love with their life’s work is why I made The Hobbyist. “I get home from work and I look at cookbooks and watch Chef's Table. It’s all day, every day.” Isn’t that the dream?
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