From the high seas to the tundra, female chefs lead in unlikely kitchens

From Brazil’s Janaína Torres, who just became the first Brazilian chef named Godmother of a major cruise ship, to Kirsten Dixon in Alaska, Mara Jernigan on Canada’s wild Pacific coast, Loyce Acom in Uganda and others, women chefs are proving that culinary leadership can thrive anywhere. Whether feeding polar bear watchers on the tundra or transforming regional food traditions into destination dining, they bring creativity, resilience and purpose to some of the most untraditional kitchens on earth.

Janaína Torres: From São Paulo to the high seas

On Nov. 16, I’ll be in Fort Lauderdale as Brazil’s Janaína Torres makes maritime history by christening Celebrity Cruises’ newest ship, Celebrity Xcel. Named the World’s Best Female Chef 2024, Torres becomes the first Brazilian chef to serve as Godmother of a major cruise line, joining the ranks of barrier-breaking women like Malala Yousafzai and Simone Biles who have held the honor before her. The centuries-old maritime tradition of a Godmother symbolizes good luck and safe travels, and Torres’s role signals a new era of purpose-driven culinary leadership at sea.

Her vision will also come to life on board. Celebrity Xcel debuts The Bazaar, a new dining venue designed to engage travelers in cultural storytelling through food and culinary experiences. It’s part of Celebrity’s larger commitment to authentic, destination-driven cuisine that highlights local sourcing and traditional recipes. Torres’ culinary firepower, alongside the line’s partnerships with other celebrated chefs, sets the stage for a shipboard experience where travel, culture and cuisine intersect in fresh, meaningful ways.

Kirsten and Mandy Dixon: Alaska’s mother-daughter chef team

In the early 1980s, Kirsten Dixon and her husband, Carl, left their hospital jobs in Anchorage and built a small cabin in Alaska’s backcountry. With no restaurants for miles, cooking for guests became Kirsten’s responsibility, and what began as a necessity soon turned into a vocation. 

Over the decades, she trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, apprenticed with chefs like Alain Ducasse and Charlie Trotter, and brought Alaska’s wild pantry to global attention through multiple cookbooks, teaching roles and appearances at the James Beard House. Today, Tutka Bay Lodge, the property they grew from a single cabin, is one of the most celebrated wilderness lodges in the state.

Her daughter, Mandy Dixon, grew up in those lodge kitchens. Mandy graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked with the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group before returning to Alaska. Now an owner and manager at Tutka Bay Lodge, Mandy also runs La Baleine Café in Homer, blending her classical training with the rugged creativity her mother modeled. Like Kirsten, she has been featured at the James Beard House and cooked on behalf of the foundation at the Milan World’s Fair.

Their lodge menus draw directly from the coastline and the land, including halibut, salmon, wild berries and foraged greens, while also reflecting the rigor of international training. Between them, mother and daughter have turned Alaska’s remote pantry into a culinary destination that bridges tradition, education and innovation.

Mara Jernigan: Cooking at sea in wild places

For most chefs, a kitchen is measured in square feet. For Mara Jernigan, it’s measured in nautical miles. As Executive Chef aboard Maple Leaf Adventures’ expedition ships, she works in compact galleys while navigating some of the wildest coastlines on earth, from the Great Bear Rainforest to Haida Gwaii and Alaska. 

At sea, Jernigan crafts elevated meals from local coastal ingredients whenever possible, like salmon pulled from nearby waters, sea greens foraged on shore or wild berries gathered by the crew. The approach has helped Maple Leaf Adventures earn the Culinary & Agritourism Experience Award at the BC Tourism Industry Conference. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to cook at sea,” she says. “I love the ships, the remote places I’ve had the chance to visit, the highly skilled crew and the guests who are attracted to this unique way to see the West Coast.”

Loyce Acom: A Ugandan kitchen with a view

At Volcanoes Safaris’ new Kibale Lodge in Uganda, meals come with both tradition and breathtaking scenery. Breakfast and lunch are served on a terrace overlooking the Rwenzori Mountains to the west, with views stretching to the Queen Elizabeth plains and the Kazinga Channel to the south. In the kitchen is Head Chef Loyce Acom, who grounds the lodge’s dining in “gushimisha,” the Kinyarwanda term for being warm, welcoming and charming.

Acom’s menus are rooted in locally grown produce and fruit harvested from the lodge’s gardens, where avocados and guavas hang heavy on the trees. Her signature dish is “filinda,” a celebratory stew of slow-cooked beans eaten with steamed “kalo,” millet bread or “matooke,” bananas, served with groundnut sauce and dodo greens. Traditionally prepared for marriage ceremonies, Acom now shares it with guests gathered at communal tables on the lodge’s expansive patio. That mix of cultural preservation and hospitality has helped put Kibale Lodge on the map, earning spots on Travel + Leisure’s list of the 100 Best Hotels of 2025, Condé Nast Traveller’s Hot List and AFAR’s Top 25 Hotels in the World.

Mary Savage: Comfort food in polar bear country

Mary Savage didn’t set out to become a wilderness chef. “Honestly, I kind of stumbled into cooking at first, but once I got into the kitchen, I realized how much I loved it,” she says. “I enjoy working with my hands and being creative, and cooking gives me that balance between artistry and precision. Every day is a challenge. There’s always problem-solving, refining techniques and finding new ways to improve. What keeps me excited is that there’s no finish line in this profession; you’re always learning.”

After two seasons at Base Camp Greenland, where the kitchen was a large tent divided from the dining area by a serving counter, she now takes on a new challenge at Natural Habitat Adventures’ Tundra Lodge in Churchill, Manitoba. “The Tundra Lodge is pretty unique; it’s a custom lodge on giant wheels, built like train-style cars,” she explains. “The kitchen and dining area share one car in an open-concept setup, with a serving counter separating the two spaces.” Cooking in front of guests adds pressure, but also connection. “If something goes wrong, it can feel stressful with so many eyes on you,” she admits. “But it’s also one of the biggest rewards; you get to connect with guests in a really unique way and share their excitement about being there.”

This fall will be her first season in Churchill. “I’m really excited about the Tundra Lodge season because I’ve never been to Churchill, and I’ve always loved the North,” she says. “I’m looking forward to living out on the tundra, surrounded by local wildlife and maybe even having the chance to see the Northern Lights away from the town.”

Sara Henstam: Crafting expedition cooking at sea

For Executive Chef Sara Henstam, leading the kitchens aboard National Geographic–Lindblad Expeditions ships is as much about adaptability as it is about flavor. On voyages that can stretch up to 30 days, she and her multinational team feed guests while exploring some of the most remote regions on Earth.

“It takes a lot of character and discipline to do the job my chefs do on board the ships,” Henstam says. “It is a commitment to the industry and to creativity, especially in our remote itineraries, but at the end of the day, this is what’s exciting about the craft: the ability to create lifelong memories and tell stories of the places we go through our food.”

Henstam calls her approach expedition cooking. With limited storage and no chance for resupply, menus must evolve with the voyage. “We are on trips sometimes for up to 30 days, so we need to be in control and read the fridge to make sure we have ingredients through the end of the trip,” she explains. Sustainability is central to her work, from the Climate Change Menu, a seven-course narrative built on 500 hours of research, to the Zero Waste Menu, which maximizes every ingredient. “These are collaborative endeavors; I come up with the concepts and my team and I develop the menus and stories together,” she says.

Mohun Bowes Taylor: Leading in the bushveld

At Singita Sabi Sand, Head Chef Mohun Bowes Taylor leads the kitchens at Ebony and Boulders Lodges while supporting students from the Singita Community Culinary School. Though the SCCS is based at Lebombo Lodge in Kruger National Park, students rotate through her kitchen to gain experience in a working lodge, where Taylor helps moderate and mentor their training.

Her work looks very different from a traditional restaurant. Operating deep in a private reserve means sourcing ingredients with care, producing strictly in season and following Singita’s no-waste ethos. Every menu is tailored not only to what’s available but also to meet the wide range of dietary requirements that international guests bring with them. Living and working on the reserve for months at a time, Taylor blurs the lines between her professional and personal life, adapting to the rhythms of the bush while creating food that reflects both sustainability and hospitality.

Beyond the lodge and the galley: Chefs in private homes

Untraditional kitchens aren’t limited to ships and safari camps. Increasingly, they’re showing up in private homes, thanks to new platforms like Chef2Nite. Founded by Kelly Lyles Verstappen, she built the company on the belief that fine dining shouldn’t be reserved for the ultra wealthy. 

“At Chef2Nite, we want to make private dining accessible to everyone,” Verstappen says. The service matches hosts with vetted local chefs who can customize menus for everything from family dinners to corporate events. With the personal chef services market expected to nearly double in the next decade, Chef2Nite aims to be at the center of that growth.

Among its roster are female chefs carving their own unconventional paths. In Atlanta, Chef Danielle Smith, executive chef at Spice House, brings the flavors of the Caribbean into private homes with specialties like jerk chicken eggrolls, fried green tomatoes and Port au Prince red snapper with black rice. Smith says her menus celebrate traditions from across Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and the Bahamas. 

In Miami, Chef Kateryna Delisi, a “Hell’s Kitchen” alum and former sous-chef in oriental cuisine, blends European influences with her love for bold, fresh ingredients. Whether crafting intimate dinners or catering lively events, she’s driven by what she calls the joy of “making every meal a unique adventure.”

By connecting chefs like Smith and Delisi directly with home hosts, Chef2Nite expands the idea of what an untraditional kitchen can be. It is transforming dining rooms into the next frontier for culinary creativity.

Untraditional kitchens, lasting impact

From christening a cruise ship to feeding guests in polar bear country, and from teaching future chefs in South Africa to cooking for travelers on Canada’s wild coasts, these women are proving that leadership in the kitchen can thrive anywhere. Their stories show that unconventional kitchens, whether in lodges, galleys, or even private homes through platforms like Chef2Nite, aren’t secondary stages but frontlines for creativity, resilience and cultural exchange. Together, they expand the definition of where great food happens and who gets to shape it.

Jennifer Allen is a retired professional chef and long-time writer. Her work appears in dozens of publications, including MSN, Yahoo, The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. These days, she’s busy in the kitchen developing recipes and traveling the world, and you can find all her best creations at Cook What You Love.

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