Dallas Chef Wins Second Place in 2025 World Food Championship

A senior sous chef at The Sheraton Hotel in Dallas just won second place in the Final Table of the 2025 World Food Championships, a contest that brings thousands of chefs from around the globe to compete for culinary glory.

The World Food Championships (WFC) has been a global food competition since 2012. Its mission is to bring together top chefs from nearly 40 countries to go head-to-head in the kitchen. The multi-day event has 12 categories: bacon, barbecue, burger, chef, dessert, live fire, noodle, rice, sandwich, seafood, soup and vegetarian.

A maximum of 20 contestants compete per category, and in the opening round, they have 1.5 hours to create a signature dish. The judges then determine the top seven contestants, who advance to the final round.

In the preliminary round, chef Ricardo Viesca Gutierrez won the World Vegetarian Champion with a pasta pappardelle with smoked vodka sauce, which is available daily at Open Palette, the restaurant inside The Sheraton Hotel.

Chef Gutierrez signed up for the vegetarian category, not because it was his first choice, but because it was the only remaining spot. Instead of viewing it as a limitation, he saw it as an opportunity to challenge himself, and he won.

Category champions were determined in November 2024 and were invited to the Final Table, which took place last weekend from March 28-30 in Bentonville, Arkansas. The winners of each category competed in a three-step culinary gauntlet for a grand prize of $150,000.

In the first challenge, Retail Gourmet, chef Gutierrez won first place with a score of 97.875, the highest in the entire event.

The second challenge was a "taste and recreate" of an award-winning chef's pasta dish from the region. He finished in second place and earned a bonus point from the chef himself for his attention to detail and flavors.

He finished in second place in the third and final challenge, with the theme of My Culinary Journey, by bringing his life experiences to the plate with beautiful storytelling and advanced culinary techniques.

The winning dish had a base of organic black beluga lentils in a creamy smoked tomato vodka sauce, with twice-cooked cauliflower tossed in a miso herb marinade; sautéed oyster mushrooms, crispy sunchokes, sweety drop peppers, green herb tuile and microgreens.

He took home second place overall with the help of his girlfriend, Marielle Ramos Hidalgo, who is also a sous chef at the Dallas Marriott Downtown.