The event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Basque Culinary World Prize (BCWP) was attended by several previous winners, including 2017 winner Leonor Espinosa from Colombia and Fatmata Binta from Ghana who won in 2022.
The BCWP was launched by the Basque government and the Basque Culinary Centre (BCC) in 2016 with a simple mission to celebrate chefs who make an impact on society beyond the kitchen. In the years since, winners have included pioneering work with indigenous communities in the Colombian Amazon, vital support for communities of refugees in Turkey, and a drive to combat climate change.
Reflecting on the prize, which has been described as the Nobel prize of gastronomy, Joxe Mari Aizega, the director general of the BCC, says the creation of the BCWP was in line with the original heart of the centre.
“The core of the BCC always had a social element since its creation as a foundation,” he explains. “The founders committed to a mission of developing the social and economic potential of gastronomy from the start.”
Since launch in 2011, the BCC has grown to become one of the world’s leading institutions dedicated to culinary education, innovation, and gastronomy-driven social impact.
Vision and values
“When we launched the prize ten years ago it was not that obvious that gastronomy could be seen as the instigator of social change,” recalls Aizega. “Gastronomy was the restaurant – it was where we had lunch and dinner, that’s it.”
But, he adds, they could see that there were chefs who were transformative. “These chefs were changing their world though a platform of gastronomy and a social commitment,” he says. They included Massimo Bottura, Ferrán Adriá and René Redzepi, all members of the BCC international advisory board.
“They all shared our vision and ideas and they were proof that we were right in our thinking.”
From the first meeting they shared some reflections on the role of the chef, which eventually resulted in an open letter to the chefs of tomorrow where they outlined those thoughts on how the chef’s role could – should – be bigger than just in the kitchen. That it could have a transformative power.
So, the seeds of the Basque Culinary World Prize were sown early in the life of BCC and with the Basque government onboard, the first award of €100,000 was handed to Maria Fernanda de Giacobbe from Venezuela who had been nominated for her work with cacao in community projects.
Since launch, the prize has received over 1,250 nominations for 850 nominees spanning 42 countries.
No longer about being the best
This year, as Leticia Landa of La Cocina in San Francisco was honored, the BCC invited seven previous winners who came together to speak to students about their work and reflect on the impact winning the prize had made.
Also present was Joan Roca, president of the jury, who noted that the dynamics of the gastronomy world have changed. “This is no longer about who is the best chef in the world,” he said. “This is about what chef is doing transformative work.”
He described, La Cocina, the 2025 winner as in step with the times we live in. “Right now more than ever we need that humanity,” he said. “La Cocina represents the values of the prize as it integrates talent into society.”
Leticia Landa, executive director of La Cocina, an incubator supporting migrants and women of color in establishing their food business, shared the project’s story and described winning the prize as incredible. “Seeing how the profile of La Cocina has risen globally in recent weeks has been amazing. More than anything, seeing how moved all the chefs I’ve worked with for so many years were to see La Cocina in the news has been incredibly rewarding. It has meant so much to our community,” she says.
The winners, except for José Andrés who was already a global figure, have all been catapulted on to the world stage through the prize. “All of them have had that visibility on their own local level but we have provided that international context,” says Aizega.
Still growing
So, what does success look like for the BCWP? How do you measure the impact? “I think the fact that we are still here and the prize is growing is a great marker of success,” says Aizega. “It might have come to a natural end, but we keep actually discovering more people who are changing their world.”
“Of course, the fact that all the previous winners have seen in the past few days are still working on their projects is success too,” he says, adding that they all demonstrate that gastronomy can be a tool for building community. “We see the future as a network of connected communities – something essential in a world that can sometimes feel too big to understand, or too complex to influence.”
As the prize enters its second decade, that mission feels as relevant as it was 10 years ago. The diversity of the winners – from Colombia to Ghana, from Turkey to the United States – shows how chefs and leaders in the food industry are reimagining their role beyond the kitchen, using gastronomy to address some of the world’s urgent social and cultural challenges.
Tina Nielsen
The full list of winners of the Basque World Culinary Prize
- 2016: Maria Fernanda di Giacobbe (Venezuela)
- 2017: Leonor Espinosa (Colombia)
- 2018: Jock Zonfrillo (Australia)
- 2019: Anthony Myint (USA)
- 2020: José Andrés (Global)
- 2021: Xanty Elías (Spain)
- 2022: Ebru Baybara Demir (Turkey)
- 2023: Fatmata Binta (Ghana)
- 2024: Andrés Torres (Spain)
- 2025: Leticia Landa (USA)
