A dish built around corn and childhood memories has taken the top prize at the Latin America and Caribbean regional final of the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy Competition, held on 29 September in Panama City. Brazilian chef Ana Flavia Batista Graciolli won with Grandma's Corn, a plate inspired by the corn festivals of her youth and her grandmother's cooking, and she now heads to the global Grand Finale in Milan in 2027.
The win came with a second nod: the Fine Dining Lovers Award, given to the dish judged the most personal and inspiring by a panel of journalists and industry insiders. A jury that included Peru's Jaime Pesaque, alongside Marsia Taha Mohamed, Alejandra Navarro, Luiz Filipe Souza and Jaime David Rodríguez Camacho, picked her entry for the way a familiar ingredient tells a distinctively Brazilian story.
Peru fielded two strong contenders with very different angles. Christian Navarrete Véliz, chef at Efímero in Cusco and mentored by Emilio Macías, reworked the city's traditional adobo into Recuerdos de un Adobo, layering chiles, corn and Andean tubers with contemporary technique. Leonardo Fassioli, mentored by Sang Jung, went coastal with Punta Hermosa, el mar que me crió — a dish shaped by growing up on the surf coast south of Lima, and one that doubles as a plea for protecting Peru's Pacific waters. Together the two plates neatly split Peruvian food culture between the Andes and the sea.
Other regional awards went to Mexico's Kevin Chavez Cazarin, whose Yucatán-inspired dish Entre el mar y el traspatio took the Social Responsibility Award from the Sustainable Restaurant Association for its attention to sourcing, waste and community impact, and Colombia's Diego Ramirez, whose pachamanca-style tribute to home cooking won the mentors' vote for the Acqua Panna Connection in Gastronomy Award.
So why should travellers care? Because this competition is a reliable early look at where Latin American dining is heading. The chefs involved — and the judges, who include Rodolfo Guzmán of Boragó in Chile, JP Park of Atomix in New York and Ana Roš of Hiša Franko — shape the restaurant scenes that food-motivated travellers chase. Eating at Efímero in Cusco today means tasting the same ideas that just earned a spot on an international stage. And the themes on display in Panama City, from Andean tubers to marine conservation and Yucatán community cooking, mirror what diners will find across the region's kitchens right now.
The road to Milan runs through 15 regional finals, each sending one winner plus collateral award recipients to the Grand Finale, where a seven-member global jury scores dishes on technical skill, creativity and personal belief. When the finals arrive in 2027, expect Graciolli's corn-and-family-table story to be one of the narratives to watch.
Original source: Living in Peru
