Karime LOPEZ*

Karime Lopez: a chef without borders, from Mexico to Denmark, from Peru to Italy!

  • 1* Mexican head chef in Italy
  • Executif chef of Massimo Bottura***
  • Chef at Noma, Central Lima, Osterria Francescana***

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Working for Massimo Bottura

Massimo Bottura, chef of the internationally renowned restaurant in Modena, Osteria Francescana has opened his first Italian restaurant outside his home city of Modena in Florence.

The restaurant opened to the general public today, 10 January 2018. The chef in charge is Karime Lopez, a Mexican cook who previously worked alongside Virgilio Martinez of Central, Peru and René Redzepi of Noma among others. She also worked at Mugaritz in Spain, Puyol in Mexico and Ryugin in Tokyo, Japan).

She moved to Italy last year when she married Takahiko Kondo or Champion Taka as Massimo Bottura likes to call his sous chef.

Working for 1st rank restaurant in Latin American 50 Best Restaurants to 1st place restaurant in World 50 Best!

The petite and charming Karime Lopez Moreno Tagle, the creative chef at Central Restaurante in Lima that placed fourth on the 2015 Restaurant Magazine’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and first on 2015 Latin American 50 Best Restaurants list

Chef Lopez, originally from Mexico, began her career in 2007 at Enrique Olvera’s famed Pujol in Mexico City, and her tenure included a stage at the famed Noma restaurant in Denmark. Post Pujol and after training at the prestigious Ryugin in Tokyo with chef Seiji Yamamoto, she joined chef Virgilio Martinez Véliz in Peru. Originally starting as head chef at his now-closed Senzo restaurant in Cusco, Peru, she moved two years ago to the flagship, Central. Currently, she heads the R&D at Central under the Mater Initiativa while working the daily service and traveling around the world with Véliz to cooking events and congresses.

She’s a girl without borders, in terms of curriculum, personal life, and her following training in Modena. She perfectly represents Italy with its strong roots but open to the outside world (it’s the world that’s celebrating Italian food, not Italy that’s looking for crutches around the world). She’s a person capable of absorbing and embellishing, of learning from the outside and presenting an improved, refined, original offer.

Chef at Bottura’s first Italian restaurant outside his home city of Modena in Florence.

The restaurant is in the Gucci garden inside the historic Palazzo della Mercanzia, which housed the Gucci Museo. Conceived by creative director Alessandro Michele, the newly designed space features a store with one-of-a-kind items as well as the Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura, the restaurant by the three Michelin star chef from Modena.

The restaurant has around 35 covers and mixes Italian cuisine with international influences that the chefs pick whenever they travel abroad. Among the items on the menu is a reinterpretation of the famous Caeser Salad as well as tortellini from Modena with a Parmigiano Reggiano cream. There will be burgers, hot dogs (using the chianina meat from Tuscany), tacos, tortillas, thai aubergine, buns stuffed with pork belly and a risotto where the mountain meets the sea and a bouillabaisse with mixed pasta (from Naples to Marseille). She received a star in 2019!

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