Our Team
Heide Lang
Founder and Chief Instructor
Heide's husband always says her cooking is the reason he married her, and we highly doubt he's joking. Heide will stop at nothing to make sure a recipe is perfect, no matter if it's the Austrian cuisine she grew up with, the Persian food she discovered in her extensive travels, or the Nashville Fried Chicken she loves more than anything. A former full-time journalist and mother of three, Heide knows that nobody (least of all herself) has five hours a day to spend making dinner, so she opened Fig to show the world that healthy, delicious gourmet cuisine can be simple enough for any week night. Sure she trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York, but she says she learned the most from cooking over 30 years in her own kitchen. And since she knows that secret recipes are overrated, she opened Fig to share her innovative menus and time-tested techniques with you.
Christina Esposito
Assistant Manager
The latest addition to the Fig family, Chrissy has quickly become an indispensable part of our team. With training from the Culinary Institute of America, as well as New York City's Gotham, and with generations of Neapolitan heritage to back up her mad pasta skills, it says a lot about Chrissy's infectious sense of humor that we like her personality even more than her cooking. Specializing in spaghetti, stories and social media, her abilities are clearly limitless. We're still not sure how we managed to score this one, but we'll let you know when we figure it out.
Gabrielle Siegel
Marketing Director
Ever since Gabrielle was little, she has preferred food to most people. She recalls standing over the stove, Strega Nona-style, as a young child wondering why pasta wasn't appearing as if from nowhere, and she looks back fondly on the days when Bertucci's gave out real pizza dough for kids to play with. Today, her favorite activity is showing off her cooking skills, even though all of her recipes are really Heide's. In addition to managing Fig's website, graphic design and marketing, she takes pictures and writes restaurant reviews and blog posts for The Road Home, the school's official blog.
Isabella Siegel
Executive Assistant
When asked if she wanted us to say anything in particular about her in her bio, Isabella modestly said, "only that I'm amazing." And it's true. The girl is pretty much unstoppable. She has been dubbed everything from "snack goddess" to "champion dishwasher," and she can staple, taste-test and morale-boost like none other. Also a gifted artist, we can always depend on her to make sure our blackboard is perfectly decorated. She can be seen assisting in our classes or down at Wooster Square, with a sample and a spiel always ready to go.