Virgilio Martinez

Virgilio Martínez Véliz (b. 1977, Lima) is the chef-owner of Central in Lima's Barranco district, ranked No. 1 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2023. He trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa and London and cooked at Lutèce (New York), Can Fabes (Sant Celoni) and Astrid & Gastón before returning to Peru to build a cuisine organised by altitude and native ingredients. In 2018 he opened Mil near the Moray terraces in the Andes, and through his Mater Iniciativa he runs an ecosystems lab cataloguing Peruvian crops with local communities.