Chefs from Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Peru, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US were named today as top ten finalists for the Basque Culinary World Prize 2018, an award for trailblazing chefs whose work has had a transformative impact “beyond the kitchen”. The announcement was made at an event at Enrique Olvera’s Cosme Restaurant in New York City, which is listed in World´s 50 Best Restaurants.
The ten top finalists include Anthony Myint (US); Caleb Zigas (US); Dieuveil Malonga (Congo/Germany); Ebru Baybara Demir (Turkey); Heidi Bjerkan (Norway); Jock Zonfrillo (Australia/Scotland); Karissa Becerra (Peru); Marc Puig-Pey (Spain); Matt Orlando (Denmark, US); and Virgilio Martínez (Peru).
For three months, earlier this year, gastronomic professionals and institutions nominated chefs from around the globe, known and unknown, who demonstrated how gastronomy could become a transformational force in areas ranging from innovation to education, health, research, sustainability, social entrepreneurship and economic development. With over 140 chefs nominated from over 42 countries, this year the prize received the largest pool of applicants to date. To be considered for the award, chefs had to be nominated by another professional currently working in the world of gastronomy - for instance, another chef, food writer or food supplier, or an institution.
Now in its third year, the prize is organised and promoted by the Basque Government under the Euskadi-Basque Country Strategy and the Basque Culinary Center (BCC), a world leading academic institution in gastronomy. In 2016, the prize went to Venezuelan María Fernanda Di Giacobbe, who won for her Cacao de Origen project in Venezuela, and, in 2017, to Leonor Espinosa for her Funleo project, a foundation that promotes "Gastronomy for development".
The winner, who will be chosen by an international jury comprised of the world’s most acclaimed chefs and experts in different aspects of food culture, will be announced on July 24th during the eighth annual meeting of the Basque Culinary Center International Council in Modena, Italy.
The Jury will be chaired by chef Joan Roca (Spain) and will include celebrated chefs such as Gastón Acurio (Peru), Massimo Bottura (Italy), Manu Buffara (Brazil), Mauro Colagreco (France), Dominique Crenn (USA), Yoshihiro Narisawa (Japan), and Enrique Olvera (Mexico).
Leonor Espinosa, the BCWP 2017 winner, will also join the jury, together with experts in other disciplines such as food writer Ruth Reichl, director David Gelb, food historian Bee Wilson and interior designer Ilse Crawford.
The winner will be awarded €100,000 to devote to a project or institution that expresses the ethos of the prize: to transform society through gastronomy.
During the presentation of the ten finalists, Bittor Oroz, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Policy in the Basque Government, said:
“This award, which is part of the comprehensive Euskadi - Basque Country Strategy, aspires to associate values shared by Basque society such as the culture of effort, commitment, a “can-do” mentality, a dedication to innovation and competitiveness and equal opportunities for women and men, with the image of the Basque Country and make it our calling card at an international level.”
These ten shortlisted chefs were chosen by a Technical Committee formed of leading academic and culinary experts including Dr. Iñaki Martínez de Albéniz, professor of Sociology at the University of the Basque Country; Jorge Ruiz Carrascal, professor of the Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen; Xavier Medina, social anthropologist and director of the UNESCO Chair on Food, Culture and Development; Pia Sörensen, director of the Science and Cooking program of Harvard University; and Carlos Zamora, chef at the helm of De Luz and seven other restaurants in Spain.
In discussing this year’s nominees, Pia Sörensen, director of the Science and Cooking program of Harvard University, said:
“What I appreciate about this prize, is how it gives awareness to something that, otherwise, would not be recognised. What we have here, with these finalists, is a good representation of what is happening in gastronomy all over the world. It reflects something pretty powerful.”
Joxe Mari Aizega, Head of the Basque Culinary Centre, said:
“We are delighted about the diversity of the profiles in areas such as innovation, education, environment, social and economic development and health. They all reflect – in their own way and context – the chefs’ commitment to society and give gastronomy an interdisciplinary dimension. They are inspirational stories for the industry and we are extremely excited to share them.”
These ten chefs reflects a movement started by pioneers including Ferran Adrià, Gaston Acurio, Dan Barber, Heston Blumenthal, Massimo Bottura, Claus Mayer, Jamie Oliver, Rene Redzepi and Alice Waters, amongst others.
The Top Ten Finalists are:
Anthony Myint. USA
Based on a scientific and innovative approach, Anthony Myint demonstrates that restaurants can provide an example in the fight against climate change. A key figure in San Francisco's gastronomic scene through Mission Chinese Food, he is co-founder of ZeroFoodprint, a non-profit organisation that advises food businesses on how to minimise – and even eliminate - their carbon footprint.
ZeroFoodprint assesses all the restaurant operations that generate greenhouse gases, including the type of ingredients used, their transport and handling, the use of energy and waste management. Based on this diagnosis, it proposes a plan with alternatives to improve their efficiency without economic losses. Teaching by example, in 2016 Myint opened The Perennial, a restaurant designed from the ground-up to avoid a negative environmental impact. In 2018, 178 restaurants around the world committed to this movement by offsetting their emissions on Earth Day. Anthony Myint was also a finalist in the Basque Culinary World Prize 2017.
(Environment – Sustainability – Research)
Caleb Zigas. USA
Zigas is the executive director of La Cocina, a social incubator that for more than a decade has allowed the transformation of people with low-incomes – mostly immigrant and African-American women – into owners of their own business in San Francisco. With a five-year training and follow-up programme, La Cocina has helped establish 30 micro-businesses and provided support for around 90. His work promotes a more inclusive industry in a country where only 33% of restaurant owners and 21% of head chefs are women, and where immigration has become a more sensitive and divisive issue. A pastry chef by profession and graduate in Globalisation and Culture from the University of Michigan, Zigas learnt about microfinance by collaborating with ProMujer, a Bolivian social enterprise that empowers women and their families in Latin America.
(Entrepreneurship – Training – Migration – Gender)
Dieuveil Malonga. Congo/Germany
Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and raised in Germany from the age of 13, this young chef took advantage of the fame he achieved through participating in Top Chef (France) to showcase and support African gastronomic talent. With his Chefs in Africa platform, founded in 2016, Malonga advises chefs and apprentices and puts them in contact with companies, academies, hotels and restaurants that might recruit them or offer grants. Its objective is to offer an opportunity to all young people with a vocation for cooking, so that they can overcome the barriers they currently face, such as lack of training, employment and discrimination. More than 4,000 chefs from African countries or in the diaspora have joined this network. Institutions such as the World Tourism Organisation and UNESCO support its work.
(Activism – Professional development – Social inclusion – Fight against discrimination)
Ebru Baybara Demir. Turkey
In Turkey, the country that has taken in more Syrian refugees than any other (more than 3.5 million people), this indefatigable chef uses gastronomy as a tool for integration. Through her initiatives, Baybara Demir empowers women of both countries and dismantles prejudices, enhancing the richness of the cultural exchange. Her latest project is being carried out in the border province of Mardin, where she aims to revitalise the battered agricultural system to create a base to combat the high female unemployment and protect traditional farming techniques. Until last year she was one of the principle educators in the “Harran Gastronomy Project”, a UNHCR project in which 160 people, mainly Syrian and Turkish women, were trained and 108 were hired to cook in the refugee camps. Ebru Baybara Demir was also a finalist in the Basque Culinary World Prize 2017.
(Migration – Gender – Social inclusion – Agriculture)
Heidi Bjerkan. Norway
An important figure in the Norwegian culinary scene, this chef defends a restaurant model that is in harmony with its surroundings. Her restaurant, Credo, operates in a circular system with the farmers in the Trondheim area. From them she receives organic food, the waste from which is then converted into fertiliser for the same fields. In 2017, this former chef of the Norwegian royal family launched Vippa, a social accelerator which provides training and work opportunities for refugees and immigrants. Bjerkan converted an old fish warehouse in the port of Oslo into a bustling street food market. Vippa participants cook and serve their dishes from stalls to mainly young people that comes to enjoy an experience of multicultural diversity.
(Sustainability – Entrepreneurship – Professional integration – Migration)
Jock Zonfrillo. Australia/Scotland
This Scottish chef is preserving memories of food that is fading away: that of the native peoples of Australia. He has dedicated the last 17 years to discovering and defending this ancient culture, which is largely excluded from the national culinary identity.
During this time, he has visited hundreds of remote communities and captured the gastronomic riches that their inhabitants have shared with him. He has included these riches on the menu of his prestigious Orana restaurant and presented them on his television programmes.In 2016 Zonfrillo launched the Orana Foundation, practicing the philosophy of “giving back more than you receive”. His objectives range from supporting indigenous communities in the production and fair marketing of their products to the documentation of more than 10,000 native ingredients and the investigation of new uses.
(Research – Biodiversity – Tradition – Economic development)
Karissa Becerra. Peru
Karissa Becerra is a chef, writer and designer but, above all, she is an activist who seeks to transform the relationship we build with food from childhood. Trained in philosophy and anthropology, Becerra teaches children and adults to think while they eat. Her most ambitious project is La Revolución, a non-profit association with a catalogue of creative activities aimed at finding out about what we eat and also at generating an emotional connection between people and food. With the funds raised by these workshops – in which thousands of children, parents and educators have participated – Becerra is taking food education to low-income schools and pressing for its inclusion in the curriculum of Peruvian public education.
(Activism – Food education – Sustainability)
Marc Puig-Pey. Spain
A member of the revolutionary kitchen team of elBulli for almost two decades, Puig-Pey decided one day to put his creativity at the service of science and health. Responsible for the Cooking Area of the Fundació Alícia in Barcelona, the chef studies and creates food solutions so that children and adults with dietary restrictions can eat food that is as healthy and as tasty as possible. His leadership has been fundamental to the success of projects that have improved the daily lives of sick people. He has designed recipes for patients who can only eat modified textures and has been involved in the production of educational video games and also, more recently, in proposing culinary preparations for people undergoing treatment for different types of cancer. These guides are free and available to the entire population online.
(Health – Innovation – Research)
Matt Orlando. Denmark/USA
Matt Orlando is one of the most influential chefs in the fight against food waste. For Orlando, everything that a product offers has potential and it is the job of the cook (not the ingredient) to reveal this. In his restaurant Amass in Copenhagen, this American promotes an environment of healthy competition among his team to find new solutions and techniques, combining research and the tools of haute cuisine. Amass uses exclusively organic products and has managed to reduce its waste by 75% in the last three years. Former right-hand man of Rene Redzepi, Orlando turns his restaurant into an educational resource, with workshops for urban children to learn how to grow, cook and eat vegetables.
(Innovation – Food waste – New restaurant models – Education)
Virgilio Martínez. Peru
The work of Virgilio Martínez links innovation, research and development with ecosystems and ancestral knowledge as a common theme. Together with his sister Malena, the chef of the renowned Central Restaurante, he leads an interdisciplinary team at the Mater Iniciativa biological and social research center. It is building a documentation, exchange and experimentation platform from which it can promote a particular vision of issues such as biodiversity (both environmental and social).
With MIL, a new restaurant at an altitude of over 3,500 metres facing the Inca ruins of Moray, he consolidates an inspiring model of catering and interaction with indigenous communities, promoting sustainable agricultural practices, knowledge exchange and the multicultural dialogues. In addition, Virgilio is committed to strengthening ties among Latin American countries, promoting opportunities for the new talent to meet.
(Research – Innovation – Biodiversity – Tradition)
