The pastry chef has been selected to enter the Top 5 of the Latin America’s Rising Star Female Chef category, chosen by foreign chefs and critics.
His nomination came as a surprise. Through an email, the chef from Cuenca Pia Salazar she was notified about her selection to enter a category that was created for the first time. Latin America’s Rising Star Female Chef awards women who “propose a new vision in gastronomy” and Salazar has been considered for this recognition.
The also pastry chef from Cuenca, who has been linked to the gastronomic field in the country for more than 20 years, is one of the owners of the restaurant Nuema, the only Ecuadorian restaurant to occupy a place on this list prepared by a group of experts convened by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, based in London. This year, for the second time, they have been included in this select list.
“For us, the theme we were nominated for was a tremendous surprise. As teams we were super happy because this is an award not only for Pía Salazar, but for the entire restaurant ”, says Pía, who opened Nuema together with chef Alejandro Chamorro, who is her husband.
According to Salazar, appearing for the second year in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is important because it positions the country in an outstanding gastronomic group. “It is very important that they can see us, because before they were only Colombia, Peru and now we can already say that we are visible, that we have very good gastronomy, that people are looking to Ecuador. This is important, especially for the cooks who are doing a good job ”, he emphasizes.
Salazar, who has been based in Quito since the age of 6, details that the nomination came to him by mail from England. Candidates are chosen by journalists, chefs, and critics who unknowingly qualify and nominate for listing.
“It is important to see the work that women are doing, before entering a kitchen was very difficult. The woman has always been present, with our grandmothers, aunts and everything. Women have now positioned themselves more because now we believe in an equality, that no one is more than another, that we are more when we go together. Women are more positioned because we believe a lot in ourselves and there is no stigma that women dedicate themselves to just one thing and we have earned that position ”, emphasizes Salazar, 40 years old.
The woman behind the professional
Salazar defines herself as a strong, supportive woman with clear goals. “I have always proposed to myself where I want to go and how I am going to do it, I believe that sometimes the impossible is possible and that we must always go where we want, where we propose, I love helping people,” he says.
The chef graduated from UTE, in Ecuador, and later traveled to Mexico to pursue a master’s degree in pastry (2003). “When I returned I worked in several restaurants, from there I was in Astrid y Gastón, working for 12 years with Gastón Acurio (Peru). I think that for me that was one of the most important schools because from them I learned the value of identity and that I learned to value the things that we had here as a country ”, he adds.
She did her internships with them, then they hired her and she was also in charge of the opening of the brand’s two restaurants in Ecuador (Astrid and Gastón, in Quito; and Tanta in Guayaquil). “I was the only woman in the restaurant with 30 men. It was difficult at the beginning because before I was very macho, but you build your job. Gastón saw me and little by little he began to send me to open his stores. With them I learned to value what Ecuador has and to name the country as a brand ”, he emphasizes.
Salazar and Chamorro have been together for 13 years. They met at work when he entered an internship and she was his boss. “We were always friends and co-workers. After about 5 years it all started and we realized that we had similar dreams as cooks. The love of cooking brought us closer together. I think this would not have happened without him, he is a man who has a lot of creativity, the passion that drives him to work together and to move forward ”, he mentions.
The beginnings of Nuema
In the Republic of Salvador and Switzerland, in Quito, they were the first years of Nuema (a name that is made up of the initials of his children Nuria, Emilio and Martín). In that opening, several of her colleagues while she worked in Peru came to help her. “Nuema was going to be a bistro and we ended up making it a restaurant. With Alejandro we made the decision to write a letter and now it is a different proposal than it was before ”, he says about its inauguration in 2014.
Now, located at Juan E1-44 and Juan Pío Montúfar, they are close to completing eight years of activities and recreating a kitchen with a record of memory, the ancestral and indigenous flavors and ingredients that highlight and rescue the variety and gastronomic richness in the country. “The first years were very difficult, but the dream we had was much stronger, because we both always dreamed that we were going to reach a prominent place like Peru or Brazil. We were thinking of getting to that place ”, he says.
The award of being part of the list of the best restaurants came as a result of the pandemic, a strong season that they lived like other guilds. “We have a lot to be grateful for that recognition, that people began to bet on us, and that they were interested in what we were doing. People also go not because we have a menu, but a 13 course menu, in which they are going to experience various flavors with local products. Nuema works with products such as goose, mashua, among others ”, he details.
In his pastry branch, Salazar is working with a seaweed confit in coconut butter, with caramelised yeast and garlic. “I work a lot with vegetables, I dedicate myself to making desserts with chocolates because we have very good chocolate, but we also have very good vegetables. We began to do tests and we saw that the result was fantastic and that is what I am dedicating myself to, making my desserts based on vegetables and tubers ”, explains Salazar.
Nuema attends from Tuesday to Saturday, in two days. The first from 12:45 to 16:00 (with a confirmed reservation of 10 people) and the second from 18:45 to 00:00. In February they plan to settle in a new establishment and by 2022 they plan to open Estela, a restaurant run by Salazar in honor of his grandmother, with a concept of traditional food.
Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants
It was launched in 2013 to celebrate gastronomy throughout the region and provide diners globally with local insight and culinary recommendations. With the exception of this special edition in 2021, the list is created by the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, an influential group of more than 250 leaders in the restaurant industry throughout Latin America, each selected for their expert opinion on the scene of the restoration of the region.
The Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list is published by William Reed Business Media, which also publishes The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, launched in 2002 and Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list, launched in 2013. The 50 Best organization seeks to bring together to hospitality communities to foster collaboration, inclusion, diversity and discovery and help drive positive change. (I)
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