---
name: "Isabella Martinez"
title: "Head Baker & Founder"
specialty: "Artisan Bread & Sourdough"
restaurant: "Madre Masa"
location: "San Francisco, USA"
headshot: "speakers/isabella-martinez.jpg"
awards:
  - "San Francisco Chronicle Rising Star 2021"
  - "Bread Bakers Guild of America Master Baker"
  - "Slow Food Presidium Recognition"
---

Isabella Martinez's love affair with bread began in her grandmother's kitchen in Mexico City, where she learned that bread is more than sustenance — it's culture, community, and love made tangible. That foundation led her on a journey through the world's great bread traditions, ultimately landing at San Francisco's legendary Tartine Bakery.

During her four years at Tartine, Isabella immersed herself in the art and science of long-fermentation breads. She developed an obsession with understanding the living ecosystems within sourdough starters, eventually cultivating over twenty distinct cultures from around the world, each with unique flavor profiles and characteristics.

Her technical mastery is matched by her commitment to sustainable sourcing. Isabella works directly with small-scale grain farmers throughout California and Mexico, championing heritage wheat varieties that were nearly lost to industrial agriculture. Her "Oaxacan Heritage Loaf," made with ancestral Mexican wheat and local California grains, has become a symbol of the neo-locavore bread movement.

Madre Masa, which Isabella founded in 2019 in San Francisco's Mission District, operates as both bakery and community hub. The space hosts weekly bread-making workshops, partners with local food banks, and has become a gathering place for the Bay Area's food community. Her naturally leavened pizza, served only on weekend evenings, regularly draws three-hour waits.

Isabella believes that bread connects us to millennia of human history and that every loaf tells a story of the land, the grain, and the hands that shaped it.
