Four-time James Beard Foundation Award nominee Katie Button is the co-founder and CEO of Asheville, North Carolina’s beloved Cúrate, a collection of restaurants, online marketplace, and culinary journeys designed to create exceptional and experiential access to Spanish culture. Button honed her craft in the kitchens of some of the world’s best chefs, most notably Ferran Adrià and José Andrés, before venturing out to open her own restaurant with husband, Felix Meana, and her family.

Among her many accolades, Chef Katie Button was featured as one of Food & Wine’s 2015 Best New Chefs. Cúrate was named as one of the “40 Most Important Restaurants of the Past 40 Years” by Thực phẩm & Rượu and one of the “Most Important Restaurants of the Decade” by Esquire. In 2016, Button released her first cookbook, Cúrate: Authentic Spanish Food from an American Kitchen.

Throughout it all, Button continues to challenge the industry standard, steadily building comprehensive benefits to create a sustainable work environment for her living wage-certified restaurant group. She also is an active participant in the James Beard Foundation’s Impact programs and is currently serving on the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s leadership team. In 2021, Button joined the brand-new Magnolia Network, launching From the Source, a series that explores the origins and stories behind different ingredients, along with Techniques for Cooking, as part of the app-based digital Magnolia Workshops.