Tala Bashmi

Tala Bashmi (; born 1988 or 1989) is a Bahraini chef and restaurateur. Since 2017, she has been chef patron of Fusions by Tala, a restaurant within the Gulf Hotel Bahrain Convention & Spa in Manama. She also appeared on cooking television shows, notably a 2019 appearance on Top Chef Middle East.

Biography Bashmi was born in Bahrain in 1988 or 1989. Growing up, Bashmi's father, who was a writer, often took her to marketplaces to buy food and taught her how to cook with local ingredients. She recalls that her father would introduce her to "weird things and strange dishes" such as pigeon, which encouraged her to experiment and try new foods. She was a runner-up on the fourth season of the cooking competition show Top Chef Middle East in 2019. The following year, Bashmi's restaurant reopened under a new name, Fusions by Tala, after a menu redesign and expansion of restaurant capacity and staff. Danielle Doporto in The National wrote in 2022 that the restaurant menu was reflective of "Bashmi's prestigious training, her love for global street eats and nostalgic home cooking, and most of all, her passion for imbuing food with Middle Eastern flair."