Leticia Landa was announced the winner of the Basque Culinary World Prize 2025 for her leadership at La Cocina, a 20-year initiative dedicated to providing training, incubation, and guidance to talented individuals from marginalised communities seeking to integrate into San Francisco’s restaurant sector. The project empowers them to lead their own businesses, make them profitable, and become part of the productive heart of their cities, transforming their environments through gastronomy.
Born in Texas to Mexican immigrant parents, Leticia knows firsthand what it means to integrate into a new community through work and education. Dividing her time between kitchens and volunteer initiatives, she studied Anthropology and joined La Cocina in 2008, where she has played a pivotal role in the project’s growth. Today, La Cocina’s network includes around 100 businesses, both incubated and graduated.
More than 40 restaurants, cafés, and food stalls across the San Francisco Bay Area have emerged from the program. Among Landa’s proudest achievements: 70% of participants remain in business 10 years after graduation. Its graduates include Veronica Salazar (founder of El Huarache Loco, a 20-year culinary institution), Reem Assil (Reem’s California, author of Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora), Fernay McPherson (Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, named one of San Francisco’s “Rising Star Chefs”), Nite Yun (Cambodian refugee and owner of Lunette, featured in Netflix’s Chef’s Table), and Koji Kanematsu, who runs six Onigilly Japanese eateries in the Bay Area.
