Jessica Rosval named Best Female Chef 2026 by 50 Best
The chef of Al Gatto Verde, inside Massimo Bottura's Casa Maria Luigia near Modena, takes the award on the night her restaurant enters the top 50 at No. 24, up from 92nd.
Jessica Rosval, head chef of Al Gatto Verde in Modena, has received the Best Female Chef Award 2026 from The 50 Best Restaurants, announced on 4 November at the Teatro Municipal de Lima. The same night her restaurant entered the top 50 for the first time, at No. 24.
The award, sponsored by Lexus, is one of the special prizes announced alongside the ranking. The organisation, known until this year as The World's 50 Best Restaurants, published the full 50 Best Restaurants 2026 list the same evening, with Asador Etxebarri named the world's best restaurant. Al Gatto Verde had placed 92nd in the 51-100 extension in 2025; this year it climbs 68 places.
Jessica Rosval and the fire kitchen at Casa Maria Luigia
A ranking rewards a dining room; this award also counts the women trained at Roots.
Al Gatto Verde sits inside Casa Maria Luigia, the guest house Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore run in the countryside outside Modena, next to a producer of traditional balsamic vinegar. Jessica Rosval has led its kitchen since September 2023. Everything is cooked over fire, using charcoal, a wood oven and smoking, and the restaurant holds one Michelin star and a green star for sustainability, according to Buonissimo.
Born in Montréal in 1985, Rosval joined the brigade of Bottura's Osteria Francescana in 2013 and took charge of the kitchen at Casa Maria Luigia in 2019. Speaking to Italian media after the ceremony, quoted by Virgilio, she said the award recognised the restaurant's young energy and a team that works as a close community.
Only one chef working in Italy had received the award before: Nadia Santini of Dal Pescatore, in 2013.
Roots, the project beyond the restaurant
In 2020 Rosval and Caroline Caporossi founded the Association for the Integration of Women (AIW). Its restaurant in Modena, Roots, offers paid kitchen training to migrant women; 63 had completed the programme by the end of 2025, according to Buonissimo. The 50 Best had already recognised the project with its Champions of Change award in 2024.
The official release cites both Jessica Rosval's wood-fired cooking and her social advocacy as grounds for the award, and names Roots as a social-enterprise restaurant that trains migrant women in professional cooking.
Italy places five restaurants in this year's top 50. Al Gatto Verde sits four places behind Piazza Duomo in Alba, the highest Italian entry at No. 20, and three ahead of Niko Romito's Reale at No. 27, from a kitchen Rosval has run for barely three years.
