Who’s Alfredo? No one. It was my partner’s idea. It came from this album behind you by the rapper Freddie Gibbs.

[Alfredo is a collaborative studio album by American rapper Freddie Gibbs and American hip-hop producer the Alchemist. It was released on May 29, 2020]

We also had a list of names the three of us put together. Until a few weeks before the opening, we still hadn’t agreed on a name.

In the end we had to choose, so we each wrote two names on a piece of paper, and the only one that stayed was this one. I think the place also gives meaning to the name. It doesn’t have to be too serious. It also works in French, Portuguese and English.

I started cooking right after high school. I grew up in Thailand from the age of 10 to 18. After high school I moved back to Paris to study cooking in a culinary school. The program lasted three years, and every year I had internships in different restaurants — some fine dining, some more casual places.

After that I worked in Paris for a year and a half. Then I moved to Lisbon for two reasons: my parents had been living here for ten years, and I was offered a job for a project called We Are Owner — a pop-up and event company that started in Portugal. Now they operate all over the world, but the first one was here, in Caparica.

In Lisbon I worked in a few places, and when I started working at Boavista Social Club a few years ago, I met Marc, my partner at Alfredo. After two years there we started talking about opening a restaurant together.

We partnered with a third person, Gaëtan, who was originally a friend of Marc. Then we found this place and everything came together through this mix of the three of us.

We completely redesigned the space. The only things we kept were the floor and the chairs. The design and decoration reflect our shared taste. Now it has been about ten months, and it’s going really well.

We were looking in this neighborhood, but also around Anjos. At first we searched quite widely and then gradually focused more on Arroios. We found this spot, saw it, and it felt like what we were looking for.

For sure. I think it really does.

We wanted to create a neighborhood spot, and our crowd is becoming more and more Portuguese, more local. You see trends, you see what works better, and the menu adapts a bit to that while still keeping a lot of freedom.

I like to keep a core structure of dishes that don’t change — like the snacks or the rice — but I still change other things regularly. Sometimes every week, sometimes every two weeks.

No, because it’s the middle of winter. But it will come back.

There are simply no good tomatoes right now, and we stopped making it as soon as the tomatoes were no longer good.

No. First of all, we do have some Portuguese-inspired dishes, but we try to approach everything with care and intention.

No matter what we cook, we take time with it. We spend time making sauces like french jus which takes a lot of time to do but I think it brings a lot of difference.

I think what matters most is the taste. When you try something and think, “This is really good,” that’s what counts.

And yeah, I do try dishes. Not always the fully finished plate, but you need to taste them during the process.

To reach creativity, you also need discipline. That’s something I’ve struggled with. Opening a restaurant is very demanding and you work a lot, so I had to find time and space to develop new ideas.

That’s why having a good team and good communication is so important. It helps unlock those moments. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun.

For me, the main thing is to cook something I would want to eat — something delicious, something I would cook for my friends or my family.

As soon as you move toward something too complicated or try too hard to experiment or prove something, I feel like it becomes less enjoyable.

But when a dish is connected to a memory or to something I really like to eat, you take much more pleasure in cooking it.

I don’t want to speak for everyone working with me, but I think we try to keep a kind and healthy kitchen environment. That’s really important.

I would just give him the menu and let him order whatever he wants, like everyone else. I don’t know him, so I don’t know what he likes.