Ecuador World Class Chef

Pía Salazar grew up in Cuenca, in a family where women turned cooking into a celebration of daily life. From an early age, she was drawn to pastry. To its structure and delicate balance between order and creativity. In pastry, there’s no room for error and to truly stand out, instinct matters as much as technique. Pía embodies both in equal measure.
She studied gastronomy in Quito and later in Mexico City, but her real education began at Astrid & Gastón, the legendary Lima restaurant that put Peruvian cuisine on the world map. There, she learned that dessert could be more than indulgence. It could be identity.

It was also where she met her future husband and business partner, Alejandro Chamorro. Together, while traveling through Latin America for the Acurio Group, fine-tuning menus and restaurant concepts, they began sketching the outlines of what would become Nuema, their project in Quito.

At Nuema, Pía found her voice. Her desserts began to blur the line between sweet and savory—herbs, roots, vegetables—all reimagined with balance and restraint where others would simply add sugar. It was bold, and it made her a pioneer. In 2022, she was named Latin America’s Best Pastry Chef, and a year later, World’s Best Pastry Chef by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Then, in October 2025, she cemented her place at the top when The Best Chef Awards in Milan honored her with three “knives” as Best Pastry Chef.

Her work has pushed Ecuadorian gastronomy into the global spotlight. Pía’s achievements have opened doors for a new generation of chefs, producers, and restaurants, showing that Ecuador’s creativity and biodiversity can stand proudly alongside the world’s best.

In 2025, she opened Pía, cocina dulce in Quito—part bakery, part laboratory—where she treats local ingredients like cacao, mucilage, guava, and moringa with the same reverence usually reserved for wine or coffee. The project was named one of the year’s best openings by France’s La Liste 1000.

Pía speaks with quiet authority, free of ego. For her, true luxury isn’t in pomp or presentation. It’s in the source. “Inspiration,” she says, “comes from the earth.” And with every creation, she proves it.