Ortiz, who is Cuban-American, was born in New York City and grew up watching his mother, a chef and cooking instructor, at work in various kosher hotels in the New York Catskills. When the summer season ended, the family relocated to Miami, where the hotels’ residents spent the winter.

At the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., Ortiz was mentored by a celebrated pastry chef, the Swiss-born Albert Kumin, who later became executive chef at Disney World in Orlando, where he hired Ortiz to be a pastry chef. With skills learned from Kumin, who was pastry chef for Jimmy Carter's family at the White House and at New York’s Tavern on the Green, Ortiz literally warmed up prospects.

“I made my own biscotti and would go to a meeting, setting up the cappuccino machine and have the biscotti fresh and warm, and they would say, “Oh my God, this is fantastic.’ I found that when talking about money, they would clam up, but food warmed them up,’’ he said.

Ortiz’s cooking skills became known in the Miami area through charities that auctioned off his custom-made meals, often dinners for eight that he prepared at the winning bidder’s home.

At this point, Ortiz came up with the idea of combining food and financial advice; he opened an office in the affluent Coral Gables, Fla., area. In the front was an office and meeting room, in the back was a full kitchen.

“After five to six years, I realized that business was limited because of all the traffic in Miami," he said. "If you weren’t within a comfortable driving distance of five to 10 minutes, you wouldn’t come for lunch with me. So, we decided to take the business mobile.

“I came up with the idea of using a high-end vehicle, which we have with the Mercedes Sprinter van, an RV by Airstream," he said. "I pick [clients] up, they come into the vehicle, or maybe I pull into their driveway, and they get in and we do a meeting, generally always over a meal, or coffee and pastry or cocktails.”

The van also has a monitor that can be used for presentations.

When it comes time to talk turkey, as it were, Ortiz says he has his own approach to advising clients on investing.

“We really focus on income distribution planning rather than accumulation strategies," Ortiz said. "Most people focus on having a big pot of money and when the market goes down 600 points, you are freaking out because those are your assets.