María José San Román is a self-taught chef and expert in traditional Catalan and Valencian cooking. One of the top female chefs in Spain, she decided on a career in restaurants and hospitality after studying Law and Languages. She worked under some of the world’s most renowned chefs, including Joan Roca of El Celler de Can Roca (voted the world’s fifth-best restaurant by Restaurant Magazine). Today San Román and her family preside over a number of successful restaurants in the Alicante area including La Taberna del Gourmet and the critically acclaimed Restaurante Monastrell. San Román has presented at a number of culinary conferences around the world including the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference in Saint Helena, California and the prestigious Madrid Fusion conference. An internationally recognized expert in “crocus sativus”, San Román has worked closely with the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha and the Spanish saffron industry and travels the world lecturing on saffron. Her book on the subject El libro del azafran will be published by Montagud in October of this year in Spanish and in English.