For Angélica Ortiz, winner of the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship 2025, in association with Parmigiano Reggiano, food is profoundly personal and deeply political.
Speak to Angélica Ortiz for just a few minutes and two things become immediately clear: she's fervent about food as a vehicle for change, and she has the determination to make that change happen. Born and raised in Medellín, Colombia, she's a relative newcomer to professional cooking. Ortiz has already enjoyed a successful career in political science, culminating in a role with the Medellín mayor's office, where she focused on women's rights and managed a team of 300 people.
"It was the kind of job you might work towards for your whole career," shares Ortiz. "But I got it in my early 30s. There were lots of positives, but it was also intense. I had human lives in my hands, trying to protect women from gender-based violence."
Shortly before taking this job, she began studying at Medellín's Mariano Moreno Culinary Institute. "Politics is a tough field and I knew I needed a change which would allow me to engage with my creative and sensitive side more."
At The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025, Ortiz joined women in the hospitality industry at the 50 Best Connects event
Initially, she studied in the evenings after work, before taking a hiatus to start her job in the mayor's office. Eventually, she took it up again, studying on the weekends. "It was hard and it took me much longer to finish than my classmates, but it was also such a relief," reflects Ortiz. "In my office job, nothing was tangible. I was signing contracts and completing projects, but I couldn't always feel the change I was making."
The sensory world of the kitchen proved to be the perfect foil. "In the kitchen, I have a fish and I have to fillet it and make something with it. I came to love that feeling of simple achievement, of engaging with the material world."
Making the move to the Big Apple
After graduating culinary school, Ortiz moved to New York City and is currently working at Brooklyn's Oxomoco. She's still passionate about cooking, but the daily grind of kitchen life – the physical labour, the hourly wages in place of a salary, and, within the US context, the lack of health insurance – has sharpened her desire to be a change maker.
"It was shocking to me, coming from an office environment. Most days I have five, 10 minutes for lunch, and I rarely get a chance to sit down. Under these conditions, it's very hard to build a team. We need industry-wide changes which allow people to work with dignity."
The three finalists of the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship 2025 at The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 awards ceremony: Angélica Ortiz, Eva Stepak-Heritier and Christian Nwabunike
She'd also like to see changes that allow women to thrive in kitchens. "People think we're equal now because there are more famous female chefs and awards celebrating them, but women are still massively underrepresented in the industry."
As well as a lack of financing for female chefs and the continued reality of sexual harassment in kitchens, she points to the physical environment as a factor which can hold women back. "Kitchens are designed for men," she explains. "Everything is very heavy and the countertops are high, making the work even more difficult.
"The answer shouldn't be that women simply have to get stronger or to try to become more like men. There should be space for a different kind of person in the kitchen: someone who takes a gentler approach."
Meeting her idols
As one of the three scholarship finalists, in June, Ortiz travelled to Turin for The World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2025, meeting several inspirational people in the process.
Ortiz is inspired by Jordi Roca, so it was fitting he presented her with the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship award
Elena Reygadas, chef-owner of Mexico City's Rosetta, No. 46 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 and winner of The World's Best Female Chef 2023, is one such inspiration, thanks to her scholarship programme, which financially supports less privileged Mexican women to attend culinary school. "It's brilliant, because if women can't go to culinary school, how will they ever run their own restaurant?" asks Ortiz. "This is a big part of the gender gap in kitchens."
Meeting Jordi Roca, part of the trio of brothers at Best of the Best restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, and winner of The World's Best Pastry Chef in 2014, was another standout moment – especially since, come awards night, it was Roca who presented her with the trophy. "In traditional pastry, everything is so closely controlled in the service of making something beautiful and delicious," she explains. "I love how he breaks the rules in his pastry and how he tells stories about different territories."
In one of her culinary school projects, Ortiz took inspiration from Roca's dish, Journey to Havana, which includes an ice cream flavoured with smoke. She explains, "I wanted to create a dessert that took me back to my childhood family vacations in Sopetrán, or more specifically, the drive there. The region is famous for its fruit, so I wanted to incorporate that, but I also wanted to reference the smell of local farmers burning leaves, since every time we did that drive, we'd pass these little pockets of smoke from farmers burning vegetation."
What the future holds
Ortiz is firm in her desire to own her own restaurant and recognises it's fine dining that will allow her to best embrace her creativity. But she's keen to take an inclusive approach. "Fine dining in Colombia is generally geared towards tourists from the US or Europe," she explains. "Most Colombians can't afford to eat in these places. I want my friends to be able to afford to eat at my future restaurant."
Parma Sumercé, a cheese, corn, sugarcane and chocolate dish, which Ortiz developed to enter the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship
Her goals don't stop there. She's already worked on some food research projects in Colombia, focusing on gathering and systematising information on traditional food and recipes across the country. She envisions her future restaurant as a home for similar work.
"I see it almost as a research centre," she explains. "Not in the sense of having a research and development team, but more like a social knowledge sharing set-up."
"I want it to be a genuine conversation between experts in traditional practices and the established practices of a restaurant, where each learns from the other.
"Restaurants should be a place for pleasure, but also for public conversation. I love thinking about my restaurant as a place where lectures and events are held, where knowledge extends beyond the kitchen to the diners."
Staging at El Celler de Can Roca and SingleThread
Ortiz may have big dreams, but she's also impressively clear-sighted about what it will take to get there. "I'm in a strange position," she muses. "At 33, I'm not so young, but I'm just starting out as a chef. I know I'm going to be a really good chef, I know I have the ambition to do it.
"I want to be humble enough to recognise that I'm still learning, but fierce enough to say I'm not starting from scratch and that my previous experiences and values will help me thrive."
Angélica Ortiz on stage at The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 awards ceremony, with Jordi Roca of El Celler de Can Roca
She'll be staging at Spain's El Celler de Can Roca (winner of The World's Best Restaurant in 2013 and 2015 and part of the Best of the Best half of fame) and California's SingleThread (No.80 on the extended list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025), opportunities afforded to her as winner of the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship. The promise of working at El Celler de Can Roca, perhaps even shoulder to shoulder with Jordi Roca is, she says, a culinary dream come true.
She's similarly excited about her time at SingleThread. "The farm-to-table concept really excites me," shares Ortiz. "Especially thinking about how I could apply it in Colombia, working with traditional farmers in a way which is economically satisfying for all parties."
It's a long road ahead, but the smart money is on Ortiz succeeding. The last time someone bet against her, they were sorely mistaken. "My teacher was convinced the smoke-flavoured ice cream was not going to work," she smiles.
"In the end he was really surprised. It was delicious." Clearly, Ortiz is not to be underestimated.
Discover the full list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025.
Find out more about the 50 Best Restaurants Scholarship, in association with Parmigiano Reggiano.
