Ana Torrealba de la Vega

Ana Torrealba is the Chef de Cuisine at El Naranjo restaurant in Austin, Texas. She was born in Mexico City, growing up in the beautiful city of Oaxaca in Southwest Mexico, a city well known for its food. She grew up at her family’s restaurant, El Naranjo, always surrounded with the aromas of corn, chiles and freshly baked bread. During school vacation, she helped her parents bake bread and make desserts. In 2006, she moved to the United States and eventually realized that she wanted to make a career in the food industry too and got her start working at various bakeries and restaurants.

Torrealba graduated from The Culinary Institute of America with an Associate’s Degree in Baking and Pastry. Then, she returned to Austin to work at her family’s restaurant for a couple of years. In 2015, Zagat included her in their list “30 under 30” best chefs in Austin. Since she was deeply interested in learning more about the process and chemistry of food, in 2016 she moved to Mexico City to study a career in food engineering. She graduated in 2020.
Since her return to Austin, chef Torrealba has been working at El Naranjo.