The winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs’ Choice Award 2025, as part of the Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants, discusses her inspirations, career pivot and what’s next after leaving Fusions by Tala.
Her tenure at award-winning Fusions by Tala may be over, but Bahraini chef Tala Bashmi is just getting started. Three years after winning the coveted Middle East & North Africa’s Best Female Chef in 2022, she’s been crowned the winner of the Estrella Damm N.A. Chefs’ Choice Award 2025, as part of the Middle East & North Africa’s 50 Best Restaurants – the only peer-voted accolade in the awards programme.
The award reflects Bashmi’s impact on the region, a result of dogged commitment and a desire to elevate Gulf cuisine to new heights. Looking at her achievements, it’s hard to imagine cooking was never in her plans. Yet, if it hadn’t been for an unforeseen career pivot in 2009, Bashmi would not be spearheading Bahraini cuisine today.
“Football was my life for 10 years, seven of which I played professionally,” Bashmi says about her past playing for Bahrain’s Women's Football team, before an injury cut her professional career short. “When I stopped, I had a bit of an identity crisis because that was all I defined myself as: a football player.”
Bashmi played professional football before turning to cooking
Her love for cooking had been simmering in the background since her childhood days spent browsing the local market with her father, but it was summoned back in an unexpected way. “While I was working at Riwaq Art Gallery, the chef would come to me and say, ‘what would you like today? Something sweet? Sour? Give me two flavours and I’ll make it’.”
Bashmi remembers this as a moment of deep inspiration and reawakening. “Seeing that joy linked to making food for others triggered something I wasn’t aware of. I left the gallery, and started my home baking business, Baking by T.”
The voice of modern Khaaleji cuisine
Started as a passion project, Bashmi’s cooking career to date has taken her from running a popular home baking business, to interning at renowned restaurants, and eventually leading her own restaurant, Fusions by Tala, in the Gulf Hotel in Manama. It has also earned her the title of the ‘voice of modern Khaaleji cuisine’, an accolade she takes into her stride confidently.
“Our ingredients are undiscovered. They're noted for medicinal reasons, and eaten in the comfort of people’s homes, but they’ve never been studied in a professional culinary way,” she says.
Bashmi is excited at the prospect to forge “a path that hasn’t been walked”, but she highlights its challenges. One of them is changing perceptions of what Gulf cuisine is, and showing how it differs from other Middle Eastern staples. “I’m educating people on our region, and how Gulf countries may have things in common, but we all do them a bit differently.” For example, she notes that Bahraini cuisine doesn’t have appetisers and mains, rather everything co-exists on the same spread..jpg)
One of Bashmi's signature dishes, crab saloona, was inspired by trips to the fish market with her father
A traditional Bahraini spread features dishes such as salted dried shrimps on rice, and two types of crispy fried fish: safi, served with sweet rice, and halfbeak in turmeric and salt. Unsurprisingly, national cuisine makes the most of the Gulf’s richness of fish and seafood. The crab saloona (a traditional Arabic stew), one of Bashmi’s signature dishes, was inspired by trips to the fish market with her father. It brings together typically sodium-rich Gulf flavours, from rice doused in bisque crab saloona to the dried scallop grated on top.
Another of the chef’s favourites, the triny (a citrus fruit) dessert – with labneh, saffron, pistachio and jameed (fermented dried yoghurt) – is one that will never be finished. “I’ve done three versions of it, and every time I make it, I realise I can do it a little bit better – improve the texture, age it a little longer, season it. You build, build, and build. You're never going to have a final version of the dish.”
She is as fascinated by the strictly traditional as by the downright quirky, including a local seasonal snack that, “looks like a broomstick” but tastes unique. “Palm pollen is my favourite native ingredient to Bahrain”, she says. Used typically as an instrument to pollinate other palm trees, “it may look odd, but when it’s young and tender, it’s a great snack.”
Milk and Honey dessert made with smoked honey, bee pollen, mango, orange blossom and chamomile
Bashmi remembers drinking the water of the palm pollen since she was a child. The chef went from hating it due to its strong medicinal taste, to concocting a version that made her appreciate this unique staple ingredient. “I played around with it, and created the palm pollen dish that’s in my latest menu. I cooked the palm husk very simply, on very low heat to preserve the flavour, and I accompanied it with a palm pollen water kombucha.”
The next level: legacy and future projects
Championing a cuisine unfamiliar to many inevitably led Chef Bashmi to become an advocate for local produce. It culminated in her being appointed Gastronomy Tourism Ambassador for the United Nations World Tourism Organization in November 2024.
The role entails connecting with other Bahraini chefs, as well as thinking about Bahraini cuisine long-term. “Sustainability goes beyond buying and eating locally. For me, it’s about how to maintain and sustain the heritage with younger generations and keeping the heritage alive through storytelling.” Bashmi is confident she will immortalise traditional recipes in a recipe book. Though this is a future project for the chef, her next steps offer a flavour of the same.
Watch the video of Tala Bashmi winning the MENA's Best Female Chef Award in 2022
“Before 2022, a lot of people outside the Arab world didn’t know me, or know I was on Top Chef Middle East,” Bashmi says. She had turned down the offer to participate in the reality show twice before, finally joined in 2021. Her aversion to being on TV didn’t stop her from ending the show in the top three.
“Top Chef was when people regionally started to get to know me, but after the Best Female Chef accolade it was like a snowball effect, with people getting to know me and what I do.”
When it comes to upcoming plans, Bashmi keeps her cards close to her chest. “Something I’ve always been interested in is storytelling. My inspiration is Anthony Bourdain, and how he’s brought communities together and educated people from all over the world through not just food, but his voice and storytelling.”
After leaving Fusions by Tala, Bashmi is busy planning her next move
Though Bourdain’s fruitful career was centred around TV, Bashmi is not as fond of the medium as she is of the matter. “I hate being on television. It’s not that part that I enjoy, but it’s telling a story that I love, and I would love for my future career to be able to share and showcase local stories. I’ve always wanted to create that for our region, because people still haven’t seen that.”
Meanwhile, chef Bashmi will keep going with the flow. “My dad would always tell me when I had a difficult day at work, ‘be flexible, allow things to happen, and you won’t break in the wind’.”
