*Content for promotional purposesAngélica Ortiz: winner of the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship 2025
This year’s winner is Angélica Ortiz, 33, a Colombian chef at the Oxomoco restaurant in New York.
We had the pleasure of interviewing her to learn more about this important achievement and her experience as a finalist.
We would like to start by asking you about your background: first your political commitment to a more just society, and then your transition to the world of cooking. Can you tell us how this transition came about?
I studied Political Science at university, driven by a desire to change the world. For ten years, I worked as a political scientist in various fields, both in the private and public sectors, focusing on community work and social research as tools to promote citizen participation and gender equality. I ended up joining the government of Medellín, my city, leading the Secretaría de las Mujeres, a public office that promotes gender equality. And although I am very proud of what I have achieved, there came a time when I felt the need for a change in my life, to find a way to live in the world where creativity played a central role and where relationships with people could be warmer and more joyful than in politics, which can be very demanding.
What had always fascinated me most was cooking, but I never thought that someone like me, without a background of wealth or privilege, could seriously pursue it. So I started attending cooking school in the evenings after work and managed to graduate as a chef and pastry chef. I was part of a research group on traditional Colombian cuisine, participating in a study on the cuisine of Boyacá, an Andean region with high dairy production that has the only aged cheese in Colombia.
And in your opinion, how can these two worlds, activism and cooking, interact and come together?
I always ask myself how we can change the world starting from the kitchen. I believe that female chefs and the hospitality industry have a very important power to transform. For female agricultural producers, who face impoverishment due to unfair prices and excessive intermediation, we can create direct supply chains with those who work the land and guarantee purchase at prices that recognize the importance of their work. For women, who traditionally take care of cooking at home and in traditional kitchens, but face barriers to entry, lack of recognition, and gender-based violence in professional kitchens. For our work teams, by transforming professional environments, often marked by violence, machismo, harassment, and exploitation, into enriching, inclusive, respectful, and appreciative environments that allow for a balance between life and work.
For our guests, offering experiences through food that transform their understanding of their own and other cultures and territories; helping them discover new ingredients and preparations to incorporate into their daily lives and, why not, encouraging them to cook more and better for themselves and their loved ones. For environmental sustainability, we promote the consumption of native and diverse ingredients, thus helping to combat monoculture. We avoid food waste and contribute to better nutrition without destroying the planet. I believe that cooking can mobilize people’s senses and imagination, literally changing the course of human lives. Cooking is a very powerful act: it influences consumer behavior, our relationship with nature, with culture, and with our own bodies. Cooking is both the cause and effect of a society’s values. Cooking and eating should be an act of searching for who we are and who we can become.
Actually, I’ve been following World’s 50 Best since long before I started studying cooking. It always seemed to me that, rather than just a ranking, it was a window into discovering cuisines and places around the world that would otherwise have remained very distant. So when I saw the announcement on their social media, I didn’t hesitate. I was also motivated by the opportunity to reflect and create that the whole scholarship process offered, beyond the final result. Starting to work in restaurants is difficult, and very often the job focuses on repetition to acquire skills. And while this is essential, it is equally necessary to have spaces dedicated to creativity.
For the competition, you proposed “Parma Sumercé,” an original dish that combines Parmigiano Reggiano, corn, sugar cane, and chocolate. What is the idea behind “Parma Sumercé”? How did you develop the concept for the dish?
Boyacá is the region with the highest production of dairy products and the only one in Colombia to produce a mature cheese with a designation of origin: Paipa cheese. In 2024, I participated in research on traditional cuisines in Boyacá, leading the process of systematizing recipes shared by traditional cooks in the region. This research resulted in a book, Cocinas Campesinas de Boyacá: Colombia Pa’ Sumercé, which was recognized by the Gourmand World Awards.
When I received the invitation to create a dish featuring Parmigiano Reggiano, I immediately thought of the similarities between this product and my region. That’s why I wanted the dish to encapsulate my experience and knowledge gained during my research in Colombia, while at the same time establishing a dialogue with Italy. Exploring these similarities, I discovered that in both Colombia and Italy, it is culturally important to have a meal between lunch and dinner. In Colombia, around five in the afternoon, people don’t have an aperitif, but “el algo” or a snack: a break between meals, somewhere between sweet and savory. This dish combines sweet and savory elements to evoke a “snack” mix.
On the other hand, Colombian cuisine, like Italian cuisine, features cheese as one of its main ingredients. In the Andean and Caribbean regions, fresh cheese is produced in abundance for everyday consumption. Queso, cuajada, and queso costeño are essential ingredients in many amasijos — traditional breads and baked goods — which, thanks to the cheese, take on a moist texture and complex flavors. My proposal was to enrich one of these fresh cheeses with the aromatic complexity of Parmigiano Reggiano, creating a completely new product: Parmigiano Reggiano cuajada. This became the base of the dough and filling for the main element of the dish: the arepa boyacense, which is also my favorite arepa. I also tried to put Parmigiano Reggiano at the center not only as an ingredient, but also as a driving force for the transformation of other ingredients: in the aging of the egg yolk and in the fermentation of the guarapo.
As finalists, you had the opportunity to immerse yourselves in our territory, starting with a visit to a Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory. What impression did this experience leave you with?
It was a dream come true. I clearly remember the first time I tasted Parmigiano Reggiano: about six or seven years ago, I visited the owner of what was then the only shop importing Italian products in Medellín, my hometown. He had just returned from a trip to Modena and offered us some Parmigiano Reggiano and balsamic vinegar. It was a feast for the palate: the combination of sweet, salty, bitter, and sour flavors, the soft texture rich in “umami crystals.” From that day on, a new dream was born in me: to visit Modena and be able to discover and taste those products with my own sensory approach. I was very struck by the similarity between Modena and Antioquia, the region where I come from, which is also surrounded by green mountains and colorful crops.
Years ago, watching the first episode of the first season of Chef’s Table, dedicated to Massimo Bottura, I was struck not only by the vastness of the warehouses and the complexity of the production of Parmigiano Reggiano, but also by the power that this product, brand, and consortium has in mobilizing the culinary world. Having the opportunity to get to know it up close, to see the people who make it possible, to hear the passion with which they carry on centuries-old knowledge and tradition, was a truly special experience. I was also very impressed by the aromas you smell during the visit: the smell of sweet milk, which changes as fermentation begins, but always remains inviting and stimulates the taste buds, until you reach the intense fruity aroma that is released when you open a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano — a unique scent that can only be experienced at that moment.
You were guests at the Cavallino Restaurant in Maranello for lunch and ended with a Michelin-starred dinner at L’Erba del Re by Luca Marchini. Tell me your impressions of the cuisine and how the raw ingredient, Parmigiano Reggiano, was enhanced.
Riccardo Forapani and Virginia Cattaneo (chef de cuisine and co-chef of the restaurant under the creative supervision of Massimo Bottura) have a special way of interpreting the spirit of Ferrari through the Cavallino’s offerings: “slow” cuisine and “fast” cars. Their reinterpretation of the classics of Modena’s gastronomic culture was, for me, the first opportunity to try most of those dishes. Someone told me that the first tortellino you taste becomes the yardstick by which you judge all the others. And my first tortellino was Bottura’s, cooked in broth and served with Parmigiano Reggiano sauce: “the best of both worlds,” I might say. L’Erba del Re is a much more irreverent and avant-garde offering, but one that is centered on love and respect for Parmigiano Reggiano. I was very impressed by one of the items on the menu: a doughnut filled with Parmigiano Reggiano cream and dark chocolate. A bold and delicious combination of flavors, similar to the one I explored in my dish, Parma Sumercé.
Marco Poderi
On June 19 in Turin, during The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025, you were announced the winner of a scholarship that will give you the opportunity to train at two of the most prestigious restaurants in the world: El Celler de Can Roca in Girona and SingleThread in Healdsburg. Tell us how you felt at that moment.
It was a truly emotional moment, because until the very last moment we didn’t know who would win. The anxiety and pressure vanished when I heard my name and saw Jordi Roca on stage—he has been one of my greatest influences in the world of gastronomy for years, and receiving the award directly from his hands was incredible.After the announcement, there was a wave of love: my family and closest friends were all tuned in to watch the broadcast from Colombia and New York, and they sent me videos full of tears and joy. I received messages from my teachers at cooking school, from chefs and cooks I’ve worked with, and from people I admire greatly in the culinary field.
Last question: what do you expect from these two experiences? What are your expectations in terms of what you will take with you on your professional journey?
One of the first steps in my career as a chef was an internship at Café Mars, a restaurant that describes itself as “unusual Italian” in New York. It was a life-changing experience: not only did I learn so much from the chefs, but also from the whole team—during shared meals, listening to the maître d’ and waiters, and in the morning, talking to the dishwashers. From personal experience, I am convinced that internships, even if short, are powerful opportunities not only professionally but also personally. I must confess that my experience at Celler de Can Roca is the one that excites me the most, because I have a special love for pastry and Jordi Roca is my most important point of reference. He inspires me because he goes beyond the common goal of pastry making—being aesthetically striking and pleasing to the palate—to tell real stories: stories of ingredients, memories, and the local area. In doing so, Jordi challenges the rules and has a lot of fun.
When I was attending culinary school, I created a dish inspired by his tobacco ice cream: I made a smoked ice cream inspired by the smell of the small fires lit by farmers along the roads of Sopetrán, where my family spent our childhood vacations, a smell that accompanies car trips under the scorching sun. It would be a dream come true to show him that dish. As for SingleThread, I find it very inspiring that it is both a restaurant and a farm, and that it is committed to transforming food production and preparation in response to climate change. Such a concept would be very powerful in Colombia, where one of the big problems is that farmers are still completely disconnected from restaurants, and vice versa. Sometimes farmers produce food that they don’t know how to consume or can’t find a market for; on the other hand, restaurants struggle to find ingredients that truly represent the richness and variety of their local areas because they are not commercial and get lost in distribution chains.
