Maria Lo

He studied a master's degree in haute cuisine technique, product and creativity at the Basque Culinary Center. In addition, he has just premiered his own series for RTVE Play, “Lo: cuisine, product and nature”, where the viewer enters his home and at the same time enjoys both the preparation of very personal recipes and some super entertaining and interesting with different public figures.

For these and many more reasons, BRA has chosen this chef as the new brand ambassador, thus joining the prestigious and recognized cast of brand ambassadors such as Martin Berasategui, Hermanos Torres, Las Recipes de MJ and Enrique Sánchez.

With BRA, Maria Lo will provide support on social networks, where she currently has more than 380k followers on Instagram and more than 150k on TikTok, presenting brand collections supported by her own experience and providing quality content with the personal touch that characterizes it.

What led you to the world of cooking and where does that creativity in your recipes come from?

The world of cooking comes from when I was very little, when I watched my father cook at home. He did it with such attention and taking care of all the details that in some way that made me connect with cooking. In addition, we have always eaten very well at home, especially on my mother's side of the family. All my aunts cook very well and in some way our way of expressing love in the family has always been through cooking.

I started cooking more when I was a teenager. I tried dishes in restaurants that I really liked and wanted to replicate them at home, and luckily, whenever I made something and gave it to my friends and family to try, the feedback was super good. That's when I realized that maybe I had a knack for cooking and that I could make delicious dishes.

I developed the most creative part when I was older. I think you always start by making recipes that you have seen or tried somewhere and that you liked, or that you have seen in a cookbook. I have been lucky enough to have gone to many restaurants, especially when I became independent, because I have always loved trying new things that surprise me. That is where you develop your palate, which I think is essential to be able to be creative in the kitchen. In this way, having this “library” of flavors and textures in my head, I am able to link flavors and textures of different ingredients and compose a balanced dish. Obviously it doesn’t work out the first time, sometimes it does, but it helps a lot with the creative process. What I always say is, try, try, try.

A virtue and a defect of María Lo in the kitchen.

My strength (and I don't know where it comes from) is that I have good control over the cooking times of each ingredient, especially meat and fish. It's a strange thing to say, but when I have a fish in the oven or a piece of meat on the grill, I imagine how it is cooking inside as time goes by. The hard part is that when I say: "that's it, it's at the perfect point" when I take it out, it is usually just as I imagined.

One flaw, which I don't know if I should call a flaw, is that I tend to make very long recipes when cooking. Because I like to do everything from scratch. More than a flaw for me, it's for others, who end up eating at 5 in the afternoon. Ah! Another flaw is that I use a lot of things when I cook, so I make a lot of mess, but of course, I'm the one who gets upset here, because after cooking for 5 hours, I also have to clean up. Although I have to say that I'm one of those who cleans up and washes while I'm cooking.

From your time on Masterchef you take away…

An unforgettable experience where I lived a lot of emotions, but above all I realized in the program that cooking, as I had always thought, was my thing. In addition to the wonderful team behind it who have always been there looking after me.

Any dreams you haven't fulfilled yet?

Opening my own bar or restaurant. Nothing fancy, just a place where you can eat well. One of those places where you leave and say: what a good meal! regardless of the price. Where anyone can come and eat a good traditional dish, but with my touch.

And also traveling to Peru, I really want to immerse myself in Peruvian gastronomy.

Your “fetish” utensil in the kitchen.

My knives are the most important thing I have in the kitchen. Now, my life was solved when I tried the BRA double pan for making omelettes. You cook an omelette more calmly knowing that it won't fall anywhere and that it will be perfect!