Cristina Martinez (chef)

Cristina Martinez is a Mexican chef and immigration activist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Martinez is a native of Capulhuac, Mexico, and she is an undocumented immigrant who crossed the border from Juárez into the United States.^[1] She found a job in Philadelphia as a pastry chef in an Italian restaurant, where she met and married Benjamin Miller, a U.S. citizen.^[2] Martinez was fired from the restaurant when they discovered her undocumented status, and she began cooking food for other Mexican workers in her apartment.^[3]

As demand grew for Martinez's home-made barbacoa, she and Miller began selling tacos from a pushcart on weekends.^[2] In 2015, they opened a permanent restaurant, South Philly Barbacoa.^[1][2] In 2016, Bon Appétit magazine named it one of the top ten best new restaurants in America.^[3]

Cristina and Miller are active in supporting undocumented immigrants in the restaurant industry, establishing an organization, the Popular Alliance for Undocumented Workers' Rights.^[2] In 2017, Univision produced a Spanish-language podcast about Martinez, called Mejor vete, Cristina ("You Better Leave, Cristina"), which won Mejor Cobertura Multimedia (Best Multimedia Coverage) at the 2018 Ortega y Gasset Awards.^[2] Martinez was also featured on an episode of the Netflix series Chef's Table in 2018.^[1]

In 2022, Martinez won a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic.^[4]