Jessie Liu is awarded first ever BBVA Scholarship by The World's 50 Best Restaurants
The 24 year old lives and works in Melbourne, Australia, and has just two years of cooking experience having begun her career in a bistro in her home city of Taipei. She is self taught, and intends to open her own restaurant within the decade.
The scholarship has been developed in conjunction with global financial group BBVA, and is intended to "nurture the culinary excellence that The World's 50 Best Restaurants promotes."
Entries were open to chefs from across the globe, and the panel received over 1000 applications from 82 countries.
Liu will spend three months working with chef Andoni Luis Aduriz at his restaurant, Mugaritz, in San Sebastian. It was voted ninth in the 2017 The World's 50 Best Restaurant Awards.
She will then work with the World’s Best Female Chef 2016, Dominique Crenn, at her eponymous restaurant in San Francisco.
Finally, Liu will be presented with the scholarship on stage at The World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2018 this June in Bilbao, Spain, before undertaking six week stages at both Mugaritz and Atelier Crenn.
“Winning this scholarship is a dream come true,” says Liu. “Despite never having been to culinary school, I now have more confidence to prove myself as a professional chef. Working in kitchens has always been very exciting and humbling for me, and I am ready to step it up a notch.”
Two further young chefs were awarded runner-up awards, following the second round of the competition in which chefs were required to perform cooking demonstrations and present their food philosophy in video form.
Mexican chef Adriana Payan created dishes inspired by her childhood, and Moris Moreno from Colombia worked solely with ingredients grown on his family farm.
“The 50 Best BBVA Scholarship will offer Jessie and future winners the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shadow and learn from some of the globe’s most celebrated chefs,” says William Drew, group editor of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
“We were truly astounded by the strength of the entries, evidence of the excellence of the raw talent in the culinary world today. Jessie impressed us with her determination to succeed, her passion for developing new dishes, her respect for the world around her and her appreciation of cooking as an art form.”
