MANU BUFFARA

A farmer’s daughter of Italian and Lebanese ancestry, Manu Buffara spent her first 14 years in Maringá, in Paraná’s interior region, southern Brazil. At aged 15, when her parents separated, she moved to Curitiba. She earned a Journalism Degree in 2005 and took courses in Hotel Management and Gastronomy at the Centro Europeu in Curitiba between 2005 and 2006, earning her chef’s Diploma at the International School of Italian Cuisine (ICIF) in Piedmont, Italy, the birthplace of the slow food movement.

She was the first Brazilian to undergo a traineeship at Noma in Copenhagen, and was a trainee at Guido restaurant, in Italy, and at three-star Alinea in Chicago. In 2012, she opened her first restaurant, Restaurant Manu, in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil. The restaurant was listed in Restaurant Magazine’s The World’s 50 Best in 2018 (along with the Miele One To Watch Award for Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2018), and in 2022, she will open a second restaurant, called Ella, in New York City.

Manu celebrates the culture and produce unique to the region of Paraná while also paving the way for gastronomy in Brazil. At her restaurant Manu, she uses organic ingredients from carefully selected suppliers as well as her own garden. Her devotion to sustainability, seasonality, and quality ingredients stems from her commitment to Curitiba: She works with local communities to transform abandoned sites into urban gardens and educate locals on beekeeping, how to care for the gardens, and healing through nutrition.