Christiano Wennmann Is Cooking Up His Own Rules
He makes pizza, models, trains twice a day, and still finds time for floristry. Naturally, he has no plans to pick just one
- Brazilian-Japanese New Yorker Christiano Wennmann brings his heritage to the kitchen, from guava-and-ricotta calzones to Japanese-inspired gluten-free dough.
- Between modelling, Scarr’s, content creation, training and floristry, he’s building a career on his own terms while embracing his tattoos and multicultural identity.
Christiano has quite a lot on his plate
There are easier ways to make a living in New York than making pizza, modelling, creating content, training twice a day, and learning floristry on the side. But Christiano Wennmann hasn’t been looking for easier.
Raised in Queens by Brazilian and Japanese heritage, he’s a pizza maker at Scarr’s, a model, a content creator and, more recently, a student of flowers. His schedule sounds like someone opened a dozen browser tabs and decided to keep them all running. Somehow, though, it works. Perhaps the secret is in the pizza.
Christiano’s cooking draws from the cultures that shaped him. One of his creations is a dessert calzone filled with guava and ricotta, riffing on the familiar guava-and-cheese pairing found throughout Brazil and Latin America. He has also experimented with gluten-free dough using Japanese bread-making techniques, including sakadane and shio koji.
It’s a good metaphor for himself: take a few different things, let them develop properly, and see what happens when you put them under heat.
Queens, with extra toppings
His culinary instincts began in Queens, where Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Astoria provided an education no culinary-school brochure could quite replicate. “I grew up in Queens and am heavily influenced by the neighborhoods I grew up spending time in.”
“In my opinion, they are the best food areas in all of New York and some of the most multicultural and diverse areas of NYC.”
He remembers a city that felt more intimate and chaotic, where families filled the streets, neighbors knew one another, and people from different backgrounds sold food outside. “The city felt alive when I was younger,” he says.
Christiano is less convinced by the New York of today. He thinks small businesses are disappearing and that an influx of transient residents has changed the relationship people have with the city. It’s the sort of opinion guaranteed to make a New Yorker nod vigorously or start an argument, sometimes both.
But his response is not to turn himself into a nostalgia account. Instead, he documents his own version of the city.
“I just try to stay true to myself and my roots and show what I actually do in my daily life and who I work with and hang out with, with no filter.”
Take me as I am
Then there are the tattoos. Christiano’s heavily tattooed, which isn’t always the easiest thing to negotiate in an industry that occasionally likes its models to arrive as blank canvases. His solution is wonderfully straightforward: if you book him, you know what you’re booking.
“I can’t really hide [my tattoos] in photoshoots,” he says. “If you decide to book me for a shoot, you know what you’re getting yourself into.” And he’s not interested in apologizing for any of it.
“I am who I am. By booking me, you’re either accepting me for who I am, or you’re not. There really isn’t any way around it.”
Christiano has found himself speaking to several communities at once. As a Brazilian-Japanese creative, he’s built a strong following among Latino and Southeast Asian audiences, a rare crossover he sees as a privilege.
“I am proud to represent my communities and be an example to the youth out there that you are capable of doing anything you put your mind to.”
The problem with being “enough”
Being biracial has also meant spending much of his life negotiating the question of where, exactly, he belongs. “I am neither here nor there,” he says.
“I feel extremely multicultural. I speak multiple languages, and I actually speak more Spanish than English in my day-to-day life due to work.”
Growing up, Christiano didn’t always find the in-between liberating. At times, it left him feeling as though he was failing every category simultaneously.
“I’m not American enough, I’m not Japanese enough, I’m not Brazilian enough,” he says. “I constantly felt like an anomaly or something was wrong with me.”
The fashionFashionThe art and industry of designing, producing, and styling clothing, footwear, accessories, and beauty trends. It reflects cultural influences, personal expression, and evolving styles across seasons and markets.Go to Fashion Glossary industry hasn’t exactly cured him of self-doubt. Modeling involves rejection, comparison, and lots of opportunities to wonder whether you’ve been invited into the room by mistake. He still experiences that feeling.
“I still go through my daily life feeling anxious, feeling nervous on set, thinking I’m not good enough to be here, not good enough to model, that I don’t deserve to be here,” he says. But there’s a crucial distinction. He doesn’t believe the feeling.
“Just because I experience those feelings doesn’t mean I believe them. It simply means I am human.”
That may be the most convincing kind of confidence there is. It comes from having doubted yourself and carrying on anyway.
“I am able to say that I love myself. Which for a very long time I don’t think I could say.”
Manifestation, with overtime
Christiano is a believer in manifestation. But if you were hoping for affirmations and a vague belief that the universe will eventually send you an email, think again.
“Manifestation without action, hard work, and discipline is just wishful thinking. You can’t sit around doing nothing and expect something to happen.”
His own routine is a fairly convincing demonstration. He works roughly 50 to 60 hours a week at Scarr’s, exercises once or twice a day, pursues modeling and content creation, and has recently started assisting a florist on brand activations while learning about arrangements and floral displays.
There are weeks when he barely sees his friends. “There are times I am exhausted and go weeks without seeing people, or doing anything except working,” he says. “But I enjoy working, and I enjoy knowing that I am furthering my dreams and my goals.”
He’s also refreshingly unapologetic about where he thinks all that work will take him. “I have zero doubt in my mind that I will reach the upper echelons of every single industry I pursue,” he says.
He knows how that sounds. “It sounds like arrogance,” he admits.
“But isn’t coming from a place of pure, unadulterated hubris or lack of awareness. It is simply the unbreakable faith I have in myself and my work ethic.”
There’s some serious history behind that faith. Christiano has overcome heroin addiction, survived overdoses and suicidal ideation, and lost numerous friends. Against that backdrop, his confidence comes from knowing exactly how far he has already come, and refusing to make that achievement smaller.
“Against all odds, I am here, and I continue to excel and work hard. So why can’t I continue to rise? Why can’t I go further, go higher, achieve greater and greater things?”
No need to choose
His advice to other biracial creatives is similarly direct. Don’t be afraid to have more than one career. You don’t necessarily need to choose one identity, one profession, or one neat definition of success.
“There is more than enough time in the day to get everything done if it is what you really want to do. It’s all about time management and sacrificing certain liberties in order to advance yourself.”
The sacrifice, he admits, can be substantial. Friends might not see you for weeks. Sleep becomes negotiable. Free time begins to look suspiciously like another work opportunity. For him, that’s currently a price worth paying.
His life is an accumulation of seemingly unrelated things that, on closer inspection, make perfect sense together. The discipline of Japanese culture. The warmth and flavor of his Brazilian upbringing. The multicultural chaos of Queens. The physicality of restaurant work. The performance of modeling. The stubbornness required to build a creative career in New York.
None of it needs to cancel anything else out. Maybe that’s why pizza is such a fitting place for him to work. Pizza’s famously democratic. You can put almost anything on it, but the ingredients still have to work together.
You need patience, heat, instinct, and a willingness to accept that the thing you started making may not look exactly like what you imagined. Christiano seems comfortable with that uncertainty.
He’s still adding ingredients. Still turning up the heat. Still seeing how far the dough can stretch. And, judging by the schedule, he has absolutely no plans to take it out of the oven anytime soon.
As seen in the pages of VMAN SEA 06: now available for purchase!
Photography Andrew Perkins
FashionFashionThe art and industry of designing, producing, and styling clothing, footwear, accessories, and beauty trends. It reflects cultural influences, personal expression, and evolving styles across seasons and markets.Go to Fashion Glossary Victor Lopez
Creative direction and production Lorenz Namalata of Fatbrain Collective
Editor Dayne Aduna
Hair Mitsuru Aota
GroomingGroomingThe care and maintenance of hair, skin, beard, and nails, including cleansing, shaving, styling, and scent. Once niche, men's grooming has grown into a major lifestyle category, and VMAN's VanityGo to Grooming Glossary Seiya Iibuchi, using MAC Cosmetics
Fashion assistant Justin Guevarra
Production assistant Jen Kang
Model Christiano Wennmann
Frequently Asked Questions
Christiano Wennmann is a Brazilian-Japanese New Yorker who works as a pizza maker, model, and content creator. He grew up in Queens and draws inspiration from the city’s multicultural communities.
Christiano works at Scarr’s in New York City. His cooking incorporates influences from his Brazilian and Japanese heritage, including guava and ricotta calzones and Japanese-inspired dough techniques.
His heritage influences both his cooking and creative identity. He incorporates Brazilian and Latin American flavors into his recipes while drawing on Japanese techniques and discipline in his work.
Alongside modeling, Christiano works at Scarr’s, creates content, trains regularly, and assists a florist with brand activations. He is committed to pursuing multiple creative careers rather than choosing just one.
Christiano believes manifestation only works when paired with action and hard work. His approach comes from overcoming significant personal challenges and continuing to pursue his goals despite setbacks.
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