SAO PAULO, March 23 — For the fourth year in a row, the organisation behind the World’s 50 Best Awards — the famous global restaurant ranking — is honouring a female chef from Latin America. This year’s prize for the World’s Best Female Chef goes to Brazilian chef Janaina Torres, who helms the A Casa Do Porco restaurant in Sao Paulo.
Thirteen years ago, the subject of violence in restaurant kitchens wasn’t widely discussed in the media and sexism in top establishments remained a taboo topic; women were still woefully underrepresented in the industry. In 2011, Anne-Sophie Pic, often identified as the “only female chef in France with three Michelin stars,” was awarded the very first trophy for World’s Best Female Chef. At the time, the World’s 50 Best Awards group, which awarded the honorary title, was embroiled in a controversy centred around French fine dining, as French restaurants were conspicuously absent from the top spots of this UK-based ranking.
In the early years of this award, it recognised chefs who were already legends in the history of gastronomy. In 2012, the ranking honoured Spain’s Elena Arzak, followed by Italy’s Nadia Santini. While other great names in the culinary world have been selected for subsequent years, such as Hélène Darroze in 2015, this trophy has recently become known for bestowing international attention on chefs who are mainly famous on a more national or local level. The World’s Best Female Chef award has, since 2014, become associated with spotting national talents when organisers chose Brazilian chef Helena Rizzo. The former top model turned renowned chef who presides over her Sao Paulo-based restaurant Mani alongside her chef and husband Daniel Redondo, became the flagbearer of a generation of Latin American female chefs that the 50 Best judges have been identifying year after year.
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While the recipient of the title in 2019 was Mexican chef Daniela Soto-Innes, since 2021, when it was awarded to Peruvian Pia Leon, the title has largely gone to chefs from South America. Leonor Espinosa, Colombian chef at the Leo Cocina y Cava restaurant in Bogota, was the winner in 2022. “The world’s second-most biodiverse country, home to 51,330 species, Colombia is increasingly carving out a territory on the international culinary atlas — and one woman has been the defining force behind that phenomenon,” wrote the 50 Best jury in announcing their choice for 2022. Last year the award stayed in Latin America with the honouree Elena Reygadas, owner of Rosetta in Mexico City.
Now, for 2024, the 50 Best group, whose ceremony announcing the top restaurants in the world is scheduled for June 5 in Las Vegas, is returning to Brazil to celebrate a chef who is also an activist and sommelier: Janaina Torres. At a time when culinary trends are placing more emphasis on plant-based dishes, the organisation chose to award the prize to a chef who works with pork in all its forms. Indeed, the name of her restaurant says it all, meaning “the house of pork.” In addition to honouring a distinctive culinary style, this choice also makes a statement at a time when dining in a gourmet restaurant is perceived as a luxury. Janaina Torres’s main restaurant is described as casual dining, with “one of the world’s best-value tasting menus at around US$60 per person.” — ETX Studio
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