The Bon Vivant Experience
here’s the deal:
Some people have vibes, but they don't have skills. Some people have skills, but they can't teach. Some people can teach, but they have no vibes.
Bon Vivant has exactly none of those problems.
We're a hospitality experience as much as we are a workshop — expertise meets personality meets obsessive attention to detail. A warm greeting into a space that feels cool in a totally non-threatening way. Snacks, drinks, and a pep talk — then two to three hours of hands-on instruction that moves. No dead air. Instructors who swoop in to rescue with a hand so deft that you still feel full credit for your work. At the end: I can't believe I made that- followed by glamour shots, a snack for the road, and a follow-up email with recipes, tool links, and the playlist we were vibing to. At every step, Bon Vivant hypes you up, holds your hand, and lays the groundwork that turns nervous First Timers into BVC Besties.
The only question is — what are we making first?
Meet the Team
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![A woman in a pink shirt with curly blonde hair is smiling and preparing a layered dessert with whipped cream, cookies, and sprinkles in a glass bowl. She holds a jar of rainbow sprinkles and a spoon. The background features colorful kitchen decorations.]()
Emily Nejad
Owner & Creative Director
Emily Nejad spent her twenties doing what creative people do — waiting tables, playing music, and quietly panicking about what she was supposed to do with her life. The answer turned out to be cake. Which she did not see coming.
Raised in Evansville, Indiana, Emily has never been able to walk into a room without immediately wondering about how to make it better. It's a blessing, a curse, and apparently a business model. She credits her mother for her entrepreneurial drive — described by those who have witnessed it as "shark-like" — and her father for her joie de vivre and her deeply held belief that there should always be something sweet on the table.
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![A woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, smiling, holding decorated cookies and a tray of small cookies, standing behind a table filled with various decorated cookies against a blue background.]()
Amanda Arellano
Kitchen Manager & Lead Instructor
Amanda hails from Eugene, Oregon, and is the architect behind every Bon Vivant cookie class. A graduate with honors from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver, Amanda spent years baking at high-volume production bakeries in Chicago before pivoting to custom cakes and cookies and eventually landing at Bon Vivant — where she promptly became the beating heart of the whole operation.
Outside of Bon Vivant she is a devoted mom to three happy kids, a proud dog mom to Beast the wiener dog and Lucky the cat, and a passionate advocate for getting the chips and guac.
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![Young woman with curly hair, glasses, and tattoos, smiling with her hand on her head against a green background.]()
Anika Berg
Lead Baker & Assistant, Head of Kid’s Programming
Born and raised in Washington, DC, Anika took a brief detour through a biology degree before deciding, correctly, that baking made her happier. As Head of Kids' Programming, Anika has a gift for making kids feel genuinely seen and heard in the way that only comes naturally. Her students adore her.
When she's not coaxing the next generation of bakers into their first piping bag, she's running Happy Hour classes, baking her way through the prep list, and serving as Bon Vivant's resident pop-punk professor — a title she has earned and wears with pride.
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![A smiling woman with curly dark hair wearing a sleeveless denim shirt and cherry earrings standing against a pink background.]()
Lilly Renteria
Workshop Assistant
Lilly fell in love with baking making box cakes for her grandma almost every week. One culinary degree from Kendall College, a Bachelor's in Hospitality Leadership from DePaul, a tour of Chicago's best bakeries, a stint at Disney, and one very memorable Bon Vivant cake class later — she ended up joining the team.
Another Texas girl who made Chicago her home, Lilly is our MVP class assistant and works behind the scenes with every single member of the team — the only person at Bon Vivant to do so – which means that if there's fun gossip to be had, Lilly gets it first.
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![A woman with long, dark hair with blonde and turquoise streaks, wearing a mustard yellow shirt, smiling and looking to the side against a light blue background.]()
Michelle Vanderwood
Workshop Instructor
Born in Texas and raised in the Chicago suburbs, Michelle started her career in finance— working a different kind of dough. After deciding that life was too short to spend it doing math, she enrolled in culinary school, learned to bake, and never looked back.
Michelle joined Bon Vivant as an assistant — a role it became immediately clear she was not destined for. Constitutionally built for the front of the room, these days you'll find Michelle teaching cookie classes at Bon Vivant, on set working as a freelance food stylist, and conducting what can only be described as an ongoing, deeply serious search for Chicago's best croissant.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Before Bon Vivant was home to Chicago's favorite cake and cookie decorating classes, it was one person, a few cake pans, and many hours of YouTube decorating videos.
After receiving a stand mixer for Christmas in 2015, Emily Nejad set about teaching herself how to use it. What started as a cheap and sweet form of therapy blossomed into a thriving (if illegal) business run out of her Lincoln Square apartment.
In 2017, Emily signed a lease on Bon Vivant's first studio on Spaulding — and spent the next several years making thousands of custom cakes, going viral on Instagram and Pinterest, and quietly becoming one of the most recognizable artists in the online cake world. Chicago's best known athletes and entertainers took notice, and Bon Vivant became the go-to cake maker for the city's coolest clients.
Like a lot of people, Emily emerged from the pandemic fundamentally changed — done with isolation and on a mission to bring people back together. She posted a series of workshops almost on a whim. It sold out in under five minutes.
She never looked back.
Custom cakes were retired. A small but mighty team of hospitality powerhouses was assembled. By 2024, Bon Vivant was hosting six workshops a week — and the waitlists were long.
Turns out Chicago was just as hungry for connection as Emily was. We just happen to serve it with frosting.
How we Give back
The Bon Vivant Community is built on care, connection, and showing up for one another. We believe in being good neighbors, both inside our studio and beyond.
In 2026, our charitable focus centers on supporting local food pantry services and immigration rights. These causes are close to our hearts and deeply connected to the community we serve.
Our 2026 partners:
If you’re interested in partnering with Bon Vivant or requesting support for a fundraiser or community event, please fill out the form and our team will be in touch. Donation requests are typically reviewed on a monthly basis, and we appreciate your patience as we thoughtfully consider each one.
Thank you for the work you’re doing and for thinking of us.