Meet Chef Isa Souza. She is a standout performer that exudes positive energy, an unparalleled love for a healthy lifestyle, and an insatiable desire to revolutionize the traditional art of cooking. Her tender voice and endearing eyes transcend to her flavorful dishes that combine traditional cooking methods with modern techniques all presented with chic elegance that characterizes the chef’s incomparable style.
Souza first graced a kitchen at the tender age of eight, in her native Brazil. Since then her innate talent has led her to develop her own signature within the art of cooking, a unique blend of traditional culinary traditions stemming from an array of cultural influences. Growing up in a small town in Brazil exposed her to distinct European traditions combined with savory Brazilian dishes.
She grew up on a farm in the south of Brazil, where natural foods became an intricate part of her life. While her grandmother lathered her hair with olive oil, her father breathed life into the grasslands that left Souza with a firmly rooted love and unique understanding for nourishment.
The chef’s savory collations are presented with a rare balance of sophistication, originality, and warmth. Souza uses every dish to transmit love and create a wholesome environment where the fundaments of a healthy and positive lifestyle emerge.
Souza received a vast array of training within distinct culinary disciplines thanks to her travels to several countries including the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, and Spain. Combined with her upbringing filled with German and Galician descendants, Souza is an alchemist in the kitchen. A plethora of techniques, ingredients and spices from different gastronomic cultures, have strongly influenced her work and created Souza’s own kitchen. However, her humble approach toward learning and growth enable her to proudly acknowledge her debt to the concepts taught by two of the greatest practitioners of the culinary arts: the Frenchman Alain Ducasse and Spaniard Jose Andres. Always true to her self-taught learning abilities, she also absorbed the techniques of Asian Masters, having taken classes in both the Philippines and Thailand.
Her quest for culinary perfection led Souza to the indistinguishable world of the culinary arts, where she was recognized as a “Professional Chef” at the best French school in America: The French Culinary Institute. There, Souza studied under the guidance of Master Chef Dave Arnold, the Director of Culinary Technology at the Institute and a pioneer in mastering the art of cooking using all the resources available. She mastered the unique art of “sous vide” (under vacuum), a technique involving the preparation of food in an air tight sealed plastic bag for several hours; a form only practiced by a select few.
An advocate of the “slow food” movement and a believer in seasonal organics, she is neither a purist nor insistent on the use of exoticism: “My recipes never require rare or inaccessible equipment, utensils or ingredients. Instead they rely primarily on balancing a combination of flavors and seasonings and, of quality ingredients. I have always believed that sophistication is not synonymous with complication,” adds Souza.
Her unique recipes and loving approach toward cooking teaches many people to envision the kitchen as a vehicle for spreading harmony in the home, using natural ingredients that are quick, easy, and fun to make.
Photo by AR ENTERTAINMENT
For more of Chef Isa Souza, order your copy of the February/March issue here
Mavian Arocha-Rowe
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