The Michelin Female Chef of the Year is a true Neapolitan, Marianna Vitale of the SUD Restaurant in Quarto (NA), Michelin star since the 2012 edition.
The prestigious award was bestowed on her as part of the fifth edition of the Atelier des Grandes Dames, a network that aims to celebrate female talent in haute cuisine wanted by Veuve Clicquot
Marianna Vitale was selected by Michelin inspectors for the tenacity with which she built a quality catering project outside the tourist circuits of her region.
“With a spirit of adventure, rigor and leadership – reads the motivation for the award – Marianna has created a place that reflects her personality. "Classic" dishes of the area and taste itineraries elaborated daily alongside new inventions, making the SUD restaurant one of the most interesting realities in the Neapolitan and Italian gastronomic scene".
Marianna, born in 1980, undertook academic studies and graduated with honors in 2004. She soon realizes, however, that her true passion is that for cooking, the product and the desire to enhance her own territory. In May 2009, SUD was born, which in just three years won the Michelin star and today is awarded the Michelin Chef Woman 2020 Award by Veuve Cliquot.
Marianna is one of the 43 Italian chefs at the head of starred restaurants. There are 168 worldwide.
Before her the Michelin Veuve Award Clicquot was awarded to Caterina Ceraudo, (see article First&Food 7 March) winner in 2017 with her restaurant «Dattilo», a farmhouse in the Calabrian countryside. In Fabrizia Meroi, (see article First&Food 4 April) perched at an altitude of 1300 meters in the snow of Sappada (Udine). To Martina Caruso, (see article First&Food) 14 March who cooks in the family hotel in Salina. After all, the intention of the award is not only to highlight the talent of women in the kitchen but also to track down particularly charismatic figures, who inspire even younger female colleagues.
Born in 1980, Marianna Vitale was born in Naples and grew up in Porta Capuana.
After graduating summa cum laude in 2004 in Spanish language and literature with a thesis on the myth of the "Guest of Stone" she devoted herself religiously to the cult of food and in May 2009 she opened Sud Ristorante with Pino Esposito, sommelier and husband, in Quarto Flegreo, in the province of Naples.
“Cooking in a restaurant, your own, is hard work, tenacity, a constant bet – the young Chef proudly states – and this fact is more tangible when you decide to start an oasis in the desert. But with unpredictable rapidity, the South has become a reliable part of the Italian gastronomic scene”.
A year after the opening of her restaurant, recognitions rained down on her: in 2011 she received the “emerging chef” award from Il Sole 24 Ore. In 2012 Sud Ristorante was awarded a Michelin star.
In 2015 Marianna was awarded best cook in Italy for the restaurant guides of L'Espresso and Identità Golose. In the same year, Marianna's impepata is dish of the year for Il Mattino di Napoli.
In March 2017 Marianna received the Identità Donna award from Identità Golose.
And now the prestigious Michelin/Veuve Cliquot recognition which is one of the prizes awarded by Michelin on the occasion of the presentation of the 65th edition of the Michelin Italy Guide, in recognition of the stories of successful Italians who contribute to the excellence of our nation's cultural heritage.
