Our Team of Passionate Foodies

Meet the Cuiline team! After 20 years of running an award-winning, global culinary travel company, Access Culinary Trips, we met some extraordinary chefs and ate delicious and authentic meals, and we learned so much about local cultures all over the world from those food interactions. We decided to build a company that brings together our network of popular chefs from all over the world to bring their regional cuisines into the kitchens of home cooks.

We have a talented and passionate team working hard to orchestrate all of this deliciousness, from selecting our chefs and scheduling them in all their different time zones, to translating their authentic recipes for home kitchens, to sourcing regional and often hard-to-find ingredients, to careful packing and shipping. Our test kitchen works to ensure recipes work for home cooks, and our virtual kitchen assistants pull everything together for a smooth and fun experience.

Tamar Lowell, Founder and CEO

Tamar is the driving force behind Cuiline, a company founded on a passion for bringing people together around authentic food experiences. She is also CEO of Access Culinary Trips, where she pioneered the concept of exploring culture through cuisine. Under her leadership, Access Culinary Trips won multiple National Geographic awards and established the first multi-day experiences in emerging culinary destinations such as Cuba, Costa Rica and South Africa. Tamar grew up jetting between the Middle East, USA and West Africa. That laid the groundwork for a lifelong desire to explore that has taken her to over 60 countries. Tamar holds a BS from the University of Maryland and a Berkeley MBA. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband and two children.

Favorite cuisine to cook: “Moroccan! My very first cooking class was in Morocco, where I learned to cook a fish tajine that has become my family's go-to holiday meal. The sea bass, marinated in a spicy chermoula, just melts in your mouth.”

Next, I want to learn how to cook: “Paella”

Thomas Lowell, Founder and CFO

Thomas brings his 20 years of experience scaling up new business and teams to the operations and finance groups at Cuiline. He has built consumer experiences that are now used by more than 100 million consumers around the world.  His passion is to drive the business growth with focused management of an outstanding customer experience like Cuiline. He has traveled to more than 50 countries and has done business in more than 10.  Thomas earned a BS in Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Berkeley Haas. He is married to Tamar and the whole family enjoys working together on Cuiline.

Favorite cuisine to cook: “Anything on the outdoor grill. I love BBQ and fresh grilled corn on the cob. One of my favorite experiences was roasting a whole pig in Cuba before an afternoon spent in the river.”

Next, I want to learn how to cook: “Beijing Duck”

Tracy Matsue Loeffelholz, Creative Director

Tracy is Cuiline’s designer and chief storyteller. She also operates the Cuiline Test Kitchen, working with chefs to make their authentic recipes work for American home cooks. She is a culinary coach with certificates in Integrative Nutrition and from the CHEF Coaching Program at Harvard’s Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, and is passionate about helping people do more home cooking. For the past 7 years, she’s been principal at Ingredients Count, developing recipes for hospitals and health care companies to give to their patients. She merges her cooking skills with her expertise in design and brand communication to produce recipe demo videos, food photography, and editorial content. She is from Hawaii, where little matters more than delicious food.

Favorite cuisine to cook: “Lately, comforting masalas and curries from Goa, India. Dear friends patiently taught me how to cook these dishes over the years. Goa was colonized by the Portuguese, and it shows up in the cuisine.”

Next, I want to learn how to cook: ”I’m trying to bring traditional Japanese washoku principles into everyday modern cooking.”

Roberto “RJ” Rios, Events Coordinator

RJ is another one of Cuiline's Virtual Kitchen Assistants. He has a love for all things food, but his passion is for pastries. When he isn't guiding home chefs through our classes, he is honing his skills as a Pastry and Dessert Chef or enjoying his free time hiking, reading, or writing. RJ has hiked through the Himalayas, camped with elephants, and visited a few European Christmas markets along his travels.

Favorite cuisine to cook: “I love adapting Pan-European pastries and dessert recipes to be dairy free or sometimes even vegan, and it can be both challenging and gratifying.”

Next, I want to learn how to cook: “Momo! I ate many different kinds while in Nepal and the possibilities intrigue me.”