Martha Ortiz

Founder and Chef | Filigrana

This Mexican chef loves to tell stories through her recipes and adores visiting markets, as well as admiring the world’s most important high couture collections. She takes strolls through museums and enjoys reading, very late at night, to keep in mind pictorial aspects in the kitchen and the flavors in the words, which reflect in the titles of her dishes- stories, the grand “mise en place”. In this way, she is at the same time an expert on the art of gastronomy and an informed and imaginative interpreter of Mexican traditions and flavors.

She also loves to write stories with flavors and has always been concerned and committed to women's empowerment through the kitchen, which she considers a space of freedom. Her statement “break the caramel roof” has been the reason for countless interviews.

Proof of such account of riches is the Dulce Patria Restaurant—illuminated with flavors, seasoning, and aroma—that Martha Ortiz Chapa successfully manages in Mexico City and which has been included in St. Pellegrino & Acqua Panna’s list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants. In 2016 and 2019 Dulce Patria received the Food and Travel Reader’s Award for Best Restaurant in Mexico City and Metropolitan Area, and it was the first Mexican restaurant to appear in La Liste in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. A year later, she received the acknowledgment as the number one restaurant in Mexico at the hands of the President of France Emmanuel Macron. Last year Martha Ortiz was named one of the Forty Best Chefs in the World.

Martha Ortiz has received several personal awards and recognitions, including Forbes Mexico's special mention as one of the 30 Mexican Business Promises in February 2015. She was also recognized by Grupo Expansión as one of the 100 most influential persons in the book Cien por México. Chef Ortiz participated as a judge in the first and second seasons of Top Chef Mexico. She designed the historical gastronomic story for the International Baroque Museum in the city of Puebla, Mexico and has also written editorials regularly for The Huffington Post. Her efforts are now focused on her new Mexican restaurant, Ella Canta, which opened in September 2017 in London. After Ella Canta, she opened Filigrana in October 2019, a new cool, fun, and lyrical concept in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. Chef Ortiz is now mostly centered in her new restaurant Tuch de Luna, which is part of the Casa de la Playa beach resort by Grupo Xcaret. She es also working on new gastronomy concepts in historical buildings and corners that have shaped Mexico City.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chef Ortiz has been offering important conferences for international groups, including IWF, Casa Dragones, Wine & Food, Citibanamex, and Nestlé, among others. Likewise, she supports important social causes related to breast cancer patients through cooking classes and seminars oriented toward their recovery.