Yeah. So, Flamma was created on a trip to Brazil, in an obscure place that is really super common in our barbecues there. And in São Paulo we have a lot of this kind of specific place.

It pretty much has the whole journey of my life and cuisine. I was an interior designer before. I came to Portugal when I was 27 years old to study gastronomy and cuisine, and I stayed here. I fell in love with the country, and I was working with huge chefs here and on nice projects — fine dining, pretty much with local products, things that are really my style.

I wanted to learn, of course, about the seafood that is lovely here, and the fish. And then I was looking for something else. I was looking for a master’s degree, maybe, and I did this master’s degree in the Basque Country. So I lived there in San Sebastián. It was a really nice experience. It divided the waters for me because there was a lot of knowledge.

And then I worked at Azurmendi, which was three Michelin stars — like my dream. I was in love with that restaurant for so many years. And then, at that point, when I finished my work there, I was looking for something else, like: what am I going to do? Okay, I came to a three-Michelin-star restaurant, and then what now?

Then I went to the Netherlands to work a little bit on a farm-to-table project for a hotel there, and then I came back to Portugal. One of the other projects I worked on was Senhor Uva, which was a really nice time and not a comfort zone for me because it was 100% vegetarian and vegan, with natural wines. So it was a challenge to cook in a different way.

And I was wondering about opening something of my own after so many years. It was kind of training for me to work there — not because of the vegetarian part, actually, but because it was a small place, like a bistro with natural wine. So if I opened something, I would like to open something like that.

So on this trip to Brazil, when I had the idea for Flamma, it was to have something small, without investors, just by myself — independent, creative. And the skewer, for me, is a really nice way to do it.

So it’s all about creativity in a kind of easy way, if I can say that, because there are a lot of layers, a lot of mise en place in my restaurant.

For me, it’s about flame. So the concept is about flame. It’s not a huge fire cuisine. It’s like low fire, low charcoal. We use coconut charcoal here, which is super neutral.

The idea here is to do something low-profile with really good products, with a lot of Latin bases, which is myself these days. So, a little bit of everything — all the places that I worked, for sure, and my influences, like my childhood, of course, because I come from São Paulo, Brazil.

And then it’s not a Brazilian restaurant. It’s not a Basque restaurant. It’s not Japanese, since I use the same techniques like yakitori and robata. But it’s my cuisine on the skewer. So there are no boundaries. There are no limits. There is a little bit of concept, of course, but there are no boundaries.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

I’m going to keep that for now. We are pretty young, right? We’re just one and a half years old. So for now, it’s working really well. I’m really happy with the results of my kitchen here and the feedback from the customers.

I think it’s nice to keep it simple. But about the techniques, I would like to grow the cuisine a little bit more soon, maybe to have an extra space for production or something like that.

The idea here is to improve even more, like creativity, and for that we need some instruments, a little bit more space, since we’re a super small restaurant. We do miracles sometimes here during the service when we’re fully, fully booked.

But the idea is to keep it simple in the way you have the experience. The technique could be even deeper, for sure, but keep really good products, seasonal products for sure, and this simplicity in the way we serve food here.

It’s all about skewers, so you can eat with your hands if you want. Some people are a little bit resistant to that.

And sometimes you need to — like this one — grab the skewer and eat it from the skewer. The other ones are okay, but sometimes we help with that. And also, it’s part of the experience, to be different in cuisine, in spices or something like that. People are not used to eating like this here.

But it’s also in the style of eating because sometimes here in Portugal we have tascas or snack bars, and then we have the restaurant. And it’s really hard to find something with quality, with a good price, in between.

So it’s also my idea here to be different, not just about flavors but about the vibe. So, okay, good products, a nice ticket, a really low-profile style of eating, and proving that we can have fine dining in the products and really good attention to the customers and clients, but in a low-profile way.

You can also feel at home and feel comfortable, for sure. And this is what I’m trying to do here.

No, no. I’m a really Aquarius person. I don’t like to have boundaries, so no labels.

And it’s really common for people who come here for the first time, or are doing an interview or something like that, to say, “Okay, it’s a Brazilian restaurant, right?” Because this barbecue is a skewer, and you’re a Brazilian chef.

Of course, we have Brazilian references here. We have our principal beer here, which is a Brazilian one — a really classic, really nostalgic one. But it’s much more about — it’s me, you know? And not just a Brazilian chef who cooks Brazilian food.

I worked so much. I traveled a lot, to so many different countries, and I also worked with a lot of Latin cuisine as well. Peruvian was the principal one after Brazil.

So the idea here is to have references, but the products are pretty much from Portugal — the fresh ones. So it’s just a touch, a nice balance between acidity and spiciness, like chilies.

In a nice way, to prove that, okay, you don’t need to have an Indian restaurant that is super spicy, or Mexican. You can have something in between, something that has a nice punch, because I think this is the Latin basis. It’s an alive kitchen. Not in the folkloric way, but an alive kitchen.

So this is the idea here, but not with labels. Never with labels.

I have that moment for sure, but I’m really pragmatic. The emotion part is the second one for me.

First of all, it needs to be balanced, seasonal for sure. It needs to work for the concept, for my customers, and with the other dishes that we have, of course, because we are always looking to have a really nicely balanced menu — vegetarian, vegan, fish, seafood and meat — and the complementary dishes as well, the garnishes that we have.

So that first part is really important, also to have a sustainable business, right? So I’m not going to lie and be romantic, like just thinking about my childhood or something like that. First of all, I’m always thinking about this pragmatic stuff.

After that, when I start trying the dish, at that moment I will travel for sure, you know? And then I will change a lot of stuff for sure because I always start with one idea and finish with another one.

But it’s in that moment that I’m really happy to do what I do. And my background — my grandma, she was Spanish and Brazilian. So I always had this influence in my life since I was a child.

I never ate the classic Brazilian, just rice and beans or something like that, in Brazil because of my grandma. She was a really good cook. Of course, it’s a cliché, but she was a really good cook. And I always tasted something Spanish, even Portuguese, like alioli, all this stuff.

And when I grew up, I paid attention that my friends from school didn’t eat the same things as me. I was like, okay, I was really lucky about it.

In São Paulo, we also have a lot of references. It’s huge. It’s cosmopolitan. So Brazil is a little bit of everything.

So, yeah, I think it’s in that moment, when I start tasting, that I can grab that emotional part.

Yeah, I mean, it’s the balance of flavors. This is always my goal.

So I love acidity, and I don’t like flat dishes, flat flavors. Of course, there are a few things that we cannot touch. I mean, if I’m going to eat a grilled fish, it’s a grilled fish. Like a whole grilled fish at the beach — of course, it’s going to be that. There are some things that are just that, right? No one touches them.

But in general, I like to have a balance between crunchiness and acidity. I think that’s my goal in my cuisine.

We also have skewers that are deep-fried or even raw, like the tuna one, for example. It’s kind of ceviche-style.

But I try to focus on fire. I pretty much don’t even turn on my oven or my cooktop during the service. I heat everything on the charcoal. I do pretty much everything on the charcoal or deep-fried.

So this is my focus. I like the texture of cooking on fire — the crispiness and then the Maillard reaction, that caramelized part. So I’m falling in love with that.

I think it’s really instinctive for us as human beings to smell the fire. Yeah, like raw, basic stuff.

Yeah, I think two dishes that I have here. Chicken heart, for sure, because, I mean, it’s my childhood. I’m from Brazil. Chicken heart is chicken heart for us. It’s classic.

Really? And also on charcoal, or in a different way, like fried?

Yeah. We start the barbecue with the chicken-heart skewer. It’s really, really common.

And then I think it represents me because, okay, we have the chicken heart, but the seasoning is completely different. It’s not the seasoning that we have in Brazil. It’s actually a Peruvian sauce that I’m in love with, that they use on the barbecues on the street, on the anticuchos, which are also skewers on the street.

I’m passionate about street food as well. And the idea here is — it’s me because, you know, okay, I have my childhood there, but I also have a lot of influences from my whole life in the kitchen.

So this one, and the tuna. I’m in love with the tuna because the sauce has a lot of layers, and I think I also have a lot of layers as a person. And then you have creaminess, you have acidity. It’s crazy here since the beginning, and it’s one of the favorites of my customers for sure.

It’s more about feeling it.

For sure, you cannot feel how comfortable the menu is going to be when you come here for the first time, I think. Because, okay, we have the terracotta colors, all the lights help to create the comfort vibe, of course. But since you’re going to eat skewers, maybe you think you’re going to have a different experience, that you’re going to have something sharper. You know, “I’m going to eat different flavors here.”

But since the customer chooses what they’re going to eat, we create the order here that we think is going to work with the flavors, to have a really nice vibe during the meal. And then they’re also usually full of love in the heart at the end of the meal.

I feel that, you know? People feel really happy, and we also feel happy too. And this conversation, for me, is about comfort food.

It’s impossible to have comfort food with sharp white lights and no music and no warm human being, no service. It’s not the same vibe.

So I think it’s more about feeling, for sure. Comfort food for me is more about feeling. Of course, there are many flavors that help it.

But also the tuna, which is fresh, it’s like a crudo, and people feel the punch, the love that we have there, the deepness of everything that we put here, and the attention that we put into the details.

No, not at all. Because, I mean, I have so many different ingredients here. And since my customers are pretty much local at this moment, from the neighborhood, from Campo de Ourique, a lot of people don’t even know what soft-shell crab is.

Or even corn, for example. I always insist, like, “Try the corn. It’s not the way that you’re thinking. It’s not the canned one, you know? It’s not sweet. It’s going to have a really nice punch of acidity as well.”

And people usually accept it. In like 85–90% of cases, they have a really, really good time.

So it doesn’t need to be recognizable. I think that’s why you need to eat first, you know? You need to see it, eat it, and just at the end of the meal you’re going to feel, okay, it’s a really nice vibe, it’s really comfortable. This is the idea that we want to have here.

I think people feel at home. Even though the music is not that childhood music or something like that, I think the vibe is really intimate.

People here feel that it’s like a second house sometimes. I mean, regular customers — sometimes I can see people take their shoes off, you know? Like, okay, I’m never going to be mad about that. I mean, for me, it’s a signal that you’re feeling at home.

So the idea is to have a really good time, really good products, but, okay, I don’t need to be in fine dining and spend a lot of money. I can just grab really nice food in my way.

Because you can also have a full meal, do a nice wine pairing, or you can just pass by. It’s really democratic. You can just pass by before a concert and grab a glass of wine, choose skewers and go to the concert.

So it’s a really democratic model. I have many kinds of ages here, like 18 to 60. So it’s nice.

Yeah, I don’t have much time for that right now since I opened a restaurant. It’s really, really new.

But I always prefer to go to places that I already know, like friends’ places. I have a lot of chef friends. I’m not into fine dining right now, also because when I go to another place, I just want to have a low-profile time as well, like I have here.

So if I choose to go to fine dining, like Michelin-starred, it’s because there is something really special or something new that I’m really interested in. It’s really different.

But I’m looking for a real — of course we have real cuisine in fine dining and Michelin-starred restaurants — but more casual, more house-style for me, with techniques. That’s my goal right now.

People, for sure. Like when we do big takeovers and pop-ups — we really love to do it and be out of our comfort zone here.

And also people in this industry. It’s so nice, like, we exchange a lot. Also customers who come here from Mexico, from Peru, from Asia — they give comments about it, and they also improve our flavors and opinions.

And, of course, when I travel. Yeah, when I travel, it’s a huge inspiration.

Thank you. Oh, yeah.