Before Raymond Li became executive chef at Palmar in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District in 2018—the same year Bon Appétit named it one of its top 50 nominees for America’s Best New Restaurants—he spent time behind bars at Florida State Prison. But as he tells it, he might not have made it to where he is today if the kitchen hadn’t been the only place willing to hire him—a young man with no professional experience and felonies on his record. Now, after saying goodbye to his post at Palmar in October, Li is gearing up on a restaurant concept of his own, scheduled to open in Bogota, Colombia, in 2020. Here, the chef looks back on his past experiences and toward the future ahead. —Clarissa Buch

I never wanted to be a chef—cooking was just something I had to do. Growing up in Miami, when my parents worked long hours, I cooked for my younger brother, Bruce. I must have been about 10 years old, and though we were raised in a Chinese-Cuban-Colombian household, I stuck to preparing “easy” things like steak and onions, eggs and ham, and omelets.

But once I got involved on the streets, it all took a back seat. Money was tight for my family, so in high school selling Xanax and weed seemed like a good idea. Before graduation, it turned into transporting large amounts of cocaine. I never made a decision to become part of a gang. I was a product of my environment and my surroundings. Things took a turn one night at a party, though. I got into an altercation with someone who pulled a gun and pointed it at my throat. Seconds before he was about to shoot, one of my friends drove by and scared him off. I got away, but later on I decided to take matters into my own hands. I drove by his house and fired 11 shots out of my 9 mm Smith & Wesson. [No one was injured.]

By the morning, nearly a dozen officers and a handful of detectives surrounded my parents’ home in Kendall, a suburban area in southwest Miami. Guns blazing, they arrested me and charged me for the drive-by shooting. I was already on probation, so I was given no bond. It was bad. Really bad.

I spent about a year away in what’s known as the original Florida State Prison, located in a small town called Raiford. It’s in the middle of nowhere, in between Gainesville and Jacksonville with a population of 200 or so people, not including the correctional facility. My time consisted of making a lot of “gulas”—a common word used in prison to describe a stew-like mix of different commissary items, like corn chips, mayonnaise, sausage, and ramen noodles—inside my cell.

Once I was released, my mom fell ill with liver disease. Even if I wanted to get back onto the streets, I couldn’t. I was too busy traveling to and from Colombia, where she was living, to take care of her. That’s when I started a side hustle meal-prepping for a family friend’s business that catered to individuals who wanted to reach a certain weight or fitness goal. I was cooking basic things, like chicken breast with broccolini in soy glaze. There was something therapeutic about it, and it wasn’t long before the guys I worked with on the line started to tell me I wasn’t half bad either. That’s when I decided to take it up a notch and accept a kitchen job as a busser at a mom-and-pop operation called Cool de Sac in Hallandale Beach, Florida, which at least got me in the right environment. It wasn’t necessarily the most glamorous, searing tenderloin and smashing together paninis in the back, but it set the stage for what was to come. The Venezuelan family who ran it took a chance on me. Looking back, I can’t really tell you why they did, but I’m eternally grateful for it.