Pia León knows what she wants and goes after it. And back in 2008, at just 21 and with internships at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain and The Ritz in Naples under her belt, what she wanted was to work with chef Virgilio Martínez. “[Everyone]…

Pia León knows what she wants and goes after it. And back in 2008, at just 21 and with internships at El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain and The Ritz in Naples under her belt, what she wanted was to work with chef Virgilio Martínez.

“[Everyone] around Lima was talking about him, so I was very curious,” says León of the then-rising Peruvian star, who after years of traveling and exploring cuisines around the world helped catapult Lima’s Astrid y Gastón restaurant into the spotlight before setting out to open his own. Without hesitation, she walked right into the construction site of what was to become one of the world’s best restaurants, Central Restaurante, and asked Martínez for a job…