A fried snack stand tribute from Colombia's Caribbean coast has just taken top honours at a major food festival in Turkey. Chef María Cecilia Restrepo — known to her followers as Aja Chechi — beat a field of four other chefs at GastroAntep 2026 in Gaziantep, a city with serious culinary pedigree. Her winning plate paired kibbeh with arepas de huevo made from black corn, a nod to the street fry stalls that define everyday eating along Colombia's Caribbean shoreline.

The competition line-up was no soft touch. Restrepo was the only woman among the contestants, facing chefs from Lebanon, Spain and Greece, plus a winner of Turkey's MasterChef. She also gave herself a handicap by choice: the black corn dough for her dish travelled with her from Colombia, so the flavours on the plate would be the real thing.

The dish itself tells a migration story. Kibbeh came to Colombia's coast through Middle Eastern arrivals generations ago and settled in as local street food, sitting comfortably beside arepas de huevo, empanadas and carimañolas at roadside fry stands. That blend is baked into Restrepo's own background — her Syrian-descended grandmother passed down family recipes during her childhood, and the chef now runs her own food venture in Cartagena. Her whole style lives in that space where Middle Eastern and Caribbean traditions overlap.

There's a fun backstory too: Restrepo later shared on social media that she hadn't realised she was entering a contest. She thought she'd be cooking a dish live, only to find herself in an international cook-off — and winning it. GastroAntep ran from Oct. 3 to 11, 2026, in a city widely regarded as one of Türkiye's great food capitals, using the festival to champion local heritage and pull chefs from different countries into conversation.

For travellers, the takeaway is two-fold. First, Gaziantep is worth building a trip around if food drives your travel plans — pistachio baklava, kebabs and a whole UNESCO-recognised food culture. Second, the Colombian Caribbean deserves the same treatment: Cartagena's street food, and the fry stalls of Barranquilla and the coast more broadly, are a cuisine shaped by African, Indigenous and Levantine influences all at once. Restrepo's win is a reminder that the best food souvenirs are often the hybrid ones — a kibbeh in Cartagena tastes like nowhere else on earth.

Full credit for this story goes to Colombia One.