Here’s the unlikely story of Ana Roš, the winner of World’s Best Female Chef title this year. She never studied cooking nor wanted to be a chef, then how did she arrive at this stage in her life. Read on to find out.
While being interviewed at her isolated hotel, Hiša Franko in the Soča valley in western Slovenia, she said that she comes from a society that doesn’t reckon cooking to be a prestigious job or has a fondness for the tradition of gastronomy.
Her restaurant, however, gets bookings months in advance from diners coming in all the way from Australia. She never expected her success to travel so far and wide. As a young teenager she was a sportswoman and represented skiing nationally, however, she was never the best at it. She quit at 17 when she realized that being second best is not enough and that skiing was not in her psychology. Later she pursued International Science and Diplomacy in Trieste. Although she was not fluent in Italian she still got a job at the European Commission in Brussels. She realized then that she wanted to leave her career in diplomacy and start her own restaurant business.
Her husband’s parents who initially owned Hiša Franko were retiring in the year 2002, and that’s when Roš and her husband, Valter, took over the business. Though she was not particularly fond of food, her husband was a big “foodie” so to speak. They traveled all over Europe trying the different food at the best restaurants around the continent. When they would return, the old-fashioned Slovenian food served at their restaurant, Hiša Franko, didn’t cut it for them.
Roš finally told her husband that someone had to get into the kitchen, but he said he’d be very busy to do that. Roš didn’t think twice and quickly stepped in. The initial years were spent reading and learning, but then came a point when it was time to act.
Her quaint, beautiful and scenic restaurant serves a menu costing 85 euros (Dh364; $99) for six courses and 120 euros for 11, and have seasonal dishes. According to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants organization, her restaurant ranks No. 69 and Roš is the Best Female Chef in the world.
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