Jun 16, 2022

Multi-hyphenate creative Sara Elise works primarily in the wellness and hospitality fields — she is the founder of Harvest & Revel, a Brooklyn-based alternative catering company that grew out of her 2012 project Bed Stuy Kitchen. For the past decade, the company is known for feeding people elegant and sensory cuisine sourced from organic, local, and seasonal ingredients. But feeding can mean more than food.

Early on in New York, Elise says she found herself living in a food desert, which inspired her to leverage her business education and professional experience in private wealth management to transform her community’s relationship with nutrition and sustainability. Today, Harvest & Revel caters weddings and events for larger-scale clients, such as Steve Madden, Etsy, Instagram, and Democracy Now!, and uses those funds to be able to work with smaller clients such as local artist organizations, food justice projects, and New York City galleries.

“Food and wellness are important because they determine the type of person you are,” Elise told NYLON Magazine. “They determine the way you’re going to act/interact with people, and how you interact with people determines the types of opportunities you’re afforded. The opportunities you’re afforded determine the type of life you end up leading.”

She’s also a cofounder and designer at Apogeo Collective, a boutique bed-and-breakfast in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, that provides queer and trans people of color with rustic luxury and adventure in safe, supportive spaces. And she’s at work on a forthcoming book with Harper Collins titled “A Recipe for More.”

Her light attracts stars. Last summer the Daily Mail published shots of Elise enjoying a Brooklyn lunch date with friend Zoë Kravitz, who “had a huge smile on her face while sipping on a glass of wine,” as the publication noted, adding that “Sara looked equally as trendy in a muted green wrap top and a pair of wide- legged pants.”