My name is Natalia — and I own and manage Colorado Bites, LLC. Food has always been a passion of mine: making it, taking photos of it, eating it, and sharing it with others. My only other passion that rivals it, is my love of travel — so I’m definitely a culinary explorer when I go other places. (I also have a travel blog called Wanderful Blonde.)
What do I focus on? Most of my content focuses on the best food and drinks around town — from the fanciest sushi restaurants to tiny, hole-in-the-wall, mom-and-pop gems. I care about big International flavors, local sourcing, and the quality of the ingredients (especially meat). I also went mostly gluten-free in 2021, so that’s also a topic I care about.
How did I get into food blogging? After many years of writing reviews for Yelp (I’m on my 13th year as a Yelp elite), I decided that I should expand those efforts to something of my own — and that’s how Colorado Bites got started as a website in 2014. Eventually I archived all the long-form posts, and most new content now goes on Instagram at @colorado_bites (while this website mainly serves to house my lists of favorites).
Is this my full-time job? Nope, although I do sometimes get paid for sponsored posts. By day, I am in finance.
Some fun facts:
- If I had to pick my favorite meal, it would be a true Louisiana crawfish boil. I fell in love with crawfish when I first visited New Orleans many years ago, and now I go there every year just for the food.
- I love to travel, and my life goal is to see the world. I was born and raised in Ukraine, studied abroad in Germany, taught English in Brazil, and have been to more than 25 countries around the world.
- I used to be a competitive Latin ballroom and salsa dancer. I don’t compete anymore — but I do go salsa dancing occasionally at clubs.
- Yes, my hair is yellow. It’s really become part of my brand, and you can usually recognize me from far away just by my hair. (Yellow is indeed my favorite color.)
