"I've never had a professional teacher in cooking, but I learned a lot in those markets," she says. "They showed me how getting to know the ingredients is like getting to know a person-and finding the best way to present them."

Lin always travels alone, and she enjoys eating alone while writing down her personal reviews.

In 2014, her family's business went bankrupt and she had to move back to China to find a job. "I had 120,000 yuan ($17,000) left and I decided to spend it all on sampling food in Europe," Lin says.

Her first chef job was at the Ritz-Carton Shenzhen, starting as an apprentice and learning from the executive chefs about how to run a kitchen. Then, one day on a search for ingredients, she met Chen Min'er.

Chen, who owns Voisin Organique, was running a farm near Shenzhen. She opened the restaurant in 2018, with a view to bring the ingredients from her farm directly to the table-while offering a dining environment without boundaries or distance between the food and the people.

Chen invited Lin to come and work with her at Voisin Organique.