Meet What’s On Chef of the Year Gabriela Chamorro

“I cooked 5,000 meals in my apartment first”: How a former cabin crew member built Dubai’s only Nicaraguan restaurant

Long before Girl & the Goose opened its doors in Business Bay, Gabriela Chamorro was hosting strangers in her living room, 10 seats at a time. A decade on, the supper club that started as a cure for homesickness has become one of Dubai’s most singular restaurants – and its chef has just been crowned What’s On Chef of the Year.

Ask most chefs how they ended up running a 125-seat restaurant and you’ll hear about culinary school, brigade kitchens and a steady climb through someone else’s pass. Ask Gabriela Chamorro, and the story starts somewhere else entirely: a Dubai apartment, a dining table set for 10, and around 5,000 home-cooked meals served to strangers who arrived through word of mouth alone.

“When you miss home, food becomes comfort, and the supper club was my way of staying connected to my roots,” Gabriela says. At the time, Chamorro was working as cabin crew, with no restaurant background on either side of her marriage. “Every opportunity had to be earned through building relationships, proving ourselves, and learning along the way,” she says.

The slowest overnight success in Dubai dining

What’s striking about the Girl & the Goose story isn’t the leap from supper club to restaurant – it’s how long Chamorro refused to make it. While others might have cashed in on early buzz, she went back to culinary school, completed stages at Michelin-starred restaurants, took over professional kitchens for days and weeks at a time, and trained under her mentor, Chef Fadi, before finally opening the restaurant with the Rosy Hospitality team.

“Hosting 10 or 15 guests in your living room a few nights a week is one thing; running a 125-seat restaurant is something entirely different,” she says. “People often assume that opening a restaurant is the natural next step after a successful supper club. It isn’t.”

She reaches for a German saying to sum it up: Gut Ding braucht Weile – good things take time. “Girl & the Goose is proof of that. Looking back, every supper club, every lesson, and every challenge was preparing me for what came next,” Gabriela recalls.

Putting Central American food on Dubai’s map

Here’s a question worth sitting with: in a city with more than 13,000 restaurants, how is it that Nicaraguan cuisine barely registered before Girl & the Goose? Latin American food in Dubai has long meant Mexican or Peruvian; Central America – Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador – has been almost invisible.

“Many people are still discovering countries like Nicaragua, which often leads to great conversations and opportunities to share our culture,” Gabriela says. “I cook the food I love. These recipes have been passed down through generations, and the dishes remind me of family gatherings, celebrations and everyday life back home.”

She’s quick to note that spotting a gap in the market was never the motivation. “A gap doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a market. The real question was always: will people connect with it? And thankfully, they did.”

A restaurant that feels like someone’s home

Girl & the Goose sits inside a Business Bay hotel, which on paper sounds like the opposite of an intimate supper club. Chamorro is unbothered by the contradiction, because she never tried to recreate those apartment dinners in the first place.

“That experience was unique and belonged to a different chapter of my life,” she says. “Instead, we focused on preserving the things that made it special: warm Latin hospitality, genuine connection, comforting food, and a sense of belonging.”

That means embracing imperfection. There’s an old office lamp leaning against the wall of the private dining room that, by her own admission, “probably shouldn’t be there, but somehow gives the room character”. A gallery wall is filled with photographs from the supper club years and memories shared by guests. “Girl & the Goose isn’t defined by where it sits,” she says. “It’s defined by the people who walk through its doors and the moments they create together.”

Those supper club years taught her something she’s carried into the restaurant: “People often think they come to a supper club for the food, but what they’re really looking for is connection. They want to feel seen, heard, and welcomed. Around the table, strangers become friends, and a meal becomes something much bigger than what’s on the plate.”

What Chef of the Year says about Dubai

In June, Chamorro was named Chef of the Year at the What’s On Dubai Awards 2026 – recognition she immediately turned outwards. “For someone from Nicaragua, a country many people know very little about, to be recognized in this way is incredibly meaningful,” she says. “In Dubai, what makes you different can become exactly what sets you apart.”

“You don’t need to come from a famous culinary family or follow a traditional path. Dubai has a way of rewarding people who are willing to take risks, work hard, and stay true to what they believe in. This recognition is bigger than me. It belongs to an entire team made up of people from different countries, backgrounds, and cultures who believe in the same mission: to put Central American cuisine on the culinary map.”

What to order at Girl & the Goose

Chamorro doesn’t hesitate when asked for the one must-order dish: the Yuca Gnocchi, served with a warm lobster bisque. “Yuca is one of the foundations of Central American cuisine, yet many people have never tried it,” she says. “It’s comforting, elegant, and deeply nostalgic. It’s a dish that honors where I come from while inviting guests to experience those flavors in a new way.”

And the dish she’d eat every single day? “Our Nicaraguan Steak Bowl. Freshly made gallo pinto, sweet plantains, a great piece of meat, and chimichurri. For a Nicaraguan, that’s very hard to beat.”

Restaurant: Girl & the Goose, Restaurante Centroamericano, Business Bay, Dubai

@girl.and.the.goose