Today the Colombian Chef Leonor Espinosa was awarded the Basque Culinary World Prize 2017, during a prizegiving gala at Tabakalera, the international centre for contemporary culture in San Sebastián.

The prize was created by the Basque Culinary Center and the Gobierno Vasco (Basque Government) within the framework of the Euskadi-Basque Country strategy. It honours chefs who have a positive impact on society as a whole, showing how gastronomy can be a driver for change in spheres such as innovation, education, the environment, social and economic development and health.

In the presence of the authorities and distinguished figures, the Basque Government’s Councillor for Economic Development and Infrastructure, Arantxa Tapia, awarded the Colombian chef Leonor Espinosa with the prize for her work within Funleo, a “Gastronomy for Development” foundation that aims to restore and promote the ancestral knowledge of communities, especially indigenous and afro-Colombian populations. It does this by promoting rural growth through ‘food sovereignty,’ creating sales channels with small producers and strengthening education, nutrition, entrepreneurship and tourism in ethnic localities.

The prize fund of €100,000 cash will go to support Leonor Espinosa’s Funleo projects, such as the opening of a Centro Integral de Gastronomía (Centre for Gastronomy) in el Choco. This will provide gastronomic training as an employment as an alternative to drug trafficking, and will raise awareness of gastronomic diversity within the country, so that its communities may independently use their biological and cultural heritage as forms of social and economic development.

Leonor Espinosa was selected as winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize 2017 from ten finalists, by a jury led by Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca restaurant (Spain) and composed of some of the world’s most influential chefs, such as Gastón Acurio (Peru), Michel Bras (France), Dominique Crenn (USA), Yoshihiro Narisawa (Japan) and Enrique Olvera (Mexico). The jury also included experts such as Laura Esquivel, author of the best-seller Like Water for Chocolate, the Basque writer Kirmen Uribe, Cristina Franchini, expert in international law, the rural sociologist Matthew Goldfarb and María Fernanda di Giacobbe, winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize 2016.