Chefs

• Leandro Carreira

  Viajante, Michelin

  Leo Carreira is a major talent of Portuguese cooking and member of Young Chefs with Guts team. He has studied in Portugal and then he hit the road. Firstly, he worked for several years at Mugaritz, in San Sebastián. Afterwards he was chef Nuno Mendes sous chef at Viajante in London. Nowadays he is travelling around the world and cooking in the most unlikely places next to the most incredible cooks, while preparing to start his own project in London. Anyway, Leo needs no further introduction.

• Florian Rühlmann

  Ocean, Michelin

  I started working in a kitchen at the age of 16, after completing 10th grade. I always enjoyed cooking, so it was exactly what I was looking for. I owe my grandmother this passion for food and gastronomy. She was an excellent cook, very thoughtful with products and its preparation. I am from Leipzig and I met chef Hans Neuner at Adlon Hotel, in Berlin. We had just started working there and we felt immediately close to each other: we worked well together and we like to exchange ideas. But honestly, working with Hans is not easy at all! He is very demanding and strict. Furthermore, he is never happy with the result. After so many years side by side, I truly understand him. However, it is a continuous challenge and a never-ending discovery. This process keeps going even when we are not at work, because we travel together to visit restaurants and meet chefs, products and flavours… Being a chef is a very hard work, but also very funny and rewarding. I like regional cooking, with local products and cultural references. Therefore, my favourite product is the sardine because we have loads in Algarve! But I also like cooking, and eating, vegetables and all sorts of fish and mussels. The key element in a dish is always the product. It is a very simple rule. I love my work: food makes us happy!

• João Rodrigues

  Feitoria, Michelin

  I never though cooking would be a way of life, but I always cooked and I always felt the pleasure of “lingering at the table”, friends dinners, family Sunday lunches, which inevitably went afternoon away. The first time I stepped in a kitchen I was 20 and it was in old Lisboa Plaza, where I worked while I was studying too. My first dish was Bacalhau à Braz, the bestseller. My elder sister was the first person asking me why I never though about becoming a professional chef. However my strongest influence was definitely my dad, who cooks very well and he has always been the family chef. He insisted on offering us different tastings: game, fish, fresh vegetables and herbs, brains, mushrooms caught by him, animal testicles… I met chef Cordeiro four years ago and the following year he invited me to open Feitoria. I think, somehow, we are chefs’ extension, they trust us greatly but we surely have to work hard to deserve it. I like to work with all kinds of fish, especially red mullets, barnacles and oysters… The sea. I surf since I was 14. I like hunting and I also play the guitar and bass. I had several bands, too much indie to be successful! I’m also fond of painting and drawing.

• Matteo Ferrantino

  Vila Joya, Michelin

  When people ask me if I like to work with chef Dieter Koschina, I usually answer, joking, that he is the one who likes to work with me! This is the reason why we are together for so many years. Obviously I love working side by side with him. He is creative, he likes experimenting new things, he grants me lots of freedom, he has sense of humour and we are friends! I started cooking when I was very young, influenced by my mother and grandmother. I’m also from a country with lots of fish, like Portugal. The first time I came to Portugal was with Dieter Koschina, in 2003. We met in Austria, where I worked. I stayed one year at Vila Joya and I went back to Austria. I worked at Ikarus, Hangar-7 (Salzburg), for three years, a very demanding restaurant, where there is a monthly guest chef, with a totally different cooking. It was an interesting experience having to learn so many techniques, trends and philosophies from each chef. There I had the opportunity to work with some of the best chefs in the world. In 2008, I met chef Koschina again and I ended up returning with him to Portugal and becoming his head chef, thanks to a lot of effort. Cooking is indeed my second love, if not the first, honouring my Italian roots!

• Yoji Tokuyoshi

  Osteria Francescana, Michelin

  I come from a seven generation-pharmacists’ family but I always knew I wanted to become a cook. I prepared my first dish at the age of eight. I put strawberries inside a cup in a marinade of milk and sugar for half an hour in the fridge. I was trying to imitate my grandmother. I felt the love and care she used in everything she did and I learnt the meaning of believing deeply in something. I named a dish in her honour, “blood and ashes”, made with strawberries and milk. At the age of 18, I started working in a small Italian restaurant, in Tokyo, and at the same time, I did a two-year cooking course. In 2005, I went to Italy, for two weeks, to find a job. I was desperate and I could not get anything. I packed again and I went back to the airport. While I was waiting, I bought a food magazine to read. I opened it at random and I read an article about Osteria Francescana. I decided, right there, to make a last call and Massimo Bottura himself picked up the phone. I tore up the plane ticket to Tokyo and I caught the train to Modena. Since then, it’s been many hours, many days, lots of work, experience, practice and dedication until I became the sous-chef of Francescana. My cooking starts with an idea, an intuition, a thought, an image. I imagine a dish as a book, with several pages and chapters, new raw materials and concepts. I always strive to find a story and a meaning in everything I cook.

• David Jesus

  Belcanto, Michelin

  I met José Avillez ten years ago in Pestana Palace Hotel. I worked there and José went for one-month traineeship. Today we are best friends and it is an honour to have become his partner. Working with him is extraordinary and inspiring. Cooking means knowledge and comfort to me. It is fascinating to observe and study the characteristics of each cooking, the differences and cultural influences as well to search the endless products yet to discover. Besides this I truly appreciate lingering at the table with family or friends. Everyday, at Belcanto, following a serious and continuous study, we are looking forward to go beyond our knowledge and offer more comfort and pleasure to those who come to our restaurant. Since early age I always felt interested for touching food and being in the kitchen, watching my parents cooking. Although they were not professionals, both my mum and dad cooked very well. The first dish I learnt to cook was Bacalhau com Natas (codfish with cream). My parents have encouraged me to develop a taste for food and cooking. So I ended up doing a training course in Cooking and Pastry in the School of Hospitality and Tourism of Lisbon. I love cooking roasted fish in the oven the Portuguese way. Yes, Portuguese fish is the best in the world!