ELENA REYGADAS, MEXICO CITY’S TOP CHEF

Walking south through Roma’s verdant Rio de Janeiro Plaza, passing the bronze replica of Michelangelo’s David, you’ll find a mass of people spilling out of a storefront onto the sidewalk. Predominantly tourists, with a few well-heeled locals, the crowd is lined up at Panadería Rosetta. Best known for its rol de guayaba, a flaky pastry with guava jam and whipped cream cheese-like filling, the combination of French-style pâtisserie with a fruit native to the region mirrors the trajectory of the bakery’s founder, Elena Reygadas. Born in Mexico City, she studied English literature at UNAM, before heading to French Culinary Institute in New York and several years working at an Italian restaurant in London. Reygadas says she spends most of her mornings in the bakery, which sits less than a block from Rosetta, her first restaurant. The Italian-inspired and Michelin-starred chef still finds opportunities for inventive changes. “A dish is never complete. We’ll be plating a dish, 200 people sitting in the restaurant, full rush, full rhythm, full concentration, with a team of eight people, and suddenly I change something in the plating.” Over the years, despite having a personality that lends itself more to “listening, observing,” she has learned to act in the rush of the moment. New projects spring from this unflinching attitude: Lardo, Café Nin, Salón Rosetta, to name a few. “I’ve learned to be confident in this deep, intuitive way of working.”