I would say the first memories I have about being in the kitchen were with my grandmother and my mother. I still remember the smell when you arrived home after school and put your hands on the food and the preparations.

My grandma used to cook a lot—small pastries and desserts—and she was always the chef of the house. She was a big inspiration for me, especially because she came from the countryside, about one hour north of Lisbon, from a region called Tomar. There were animals everywhere, olive trees, olive oil production, vinegar distilleries, and dry nuts. That was the core of the farm, so I was always somehow influenced by that way of living.

When I was 16, I had a moment when I felt something that gave me more than just a nice feeling of commitment. It was something I could give to others. I think that's the sense of hospitality: transforming something in order to give pleasure to someone, to take care of that person, and send them back to life with something new and pleasant.

That's when I felt I might be searching for something related to food, because it was something I had been doing since I was a kid. I think all of it came together when I was around 15 or 16 years old.

Then I moved from Porto to Lisbon to take my degree in Culinary Arts. From that moment on, I decided to do internships with several chefs. Later I went to London, where I spent a great period working with an international chef in Michelin-starred restaurants.

Since then, I've been building my career. This year marks 18 years.

Definitely. One of them is baked sardines with vinegar, garlic, olive oil, and bay leaf.

It's such a seasonal dish, and the season is so short that whenever we have that type of product, we always want to cook it. I've tried to replicate it at the restaurant, but it's almost impossible because it's not only the flavour. It's the scent, the knowledge behind it, and everything it requires to recreate those memories.

But you still carry that structure with you. You adapt dishes, you bring memories back to life.

I think that's what my grandmother would tell me if she were here. Those memories, the smells, and that heritage that gathers people around the table—that's what makes me wake up every day, cook, put my hands on the food, manage the project, and try to be as Portuguese as I can be, while not ignoring new flavours and seasonal combinations.

It may not always be 100% heritage Portuguese cooking, but it represents what we have in Portugal today, working with small suppliers and seasonal ingredients.

I think Broto is, somehow, a meeting point between tradition, memories, heritage from my past, and the new Portuguese food movement.

I think it's about bringing small suppliers to life, celebrating products in season, and creating combinations that make sense with those products, without losing the simple way of cooking that is so Portuguese, so natural to us.

First of all, we need to respect tradition.

The old book of Portuguese gastronomy—the recipes and knowledge that have shaped our culinary memory—we should really respect that. We might transform things a little, but when you taste a feijoada, it still has to taste like feijoada.

The natural shape of every ingredient should also be respected. That should always remain the centre of the plate.

Technique should only appear when it's needed to enhance something, reshape something, or bring more flavour, complexity, and consistency. Otherwise, technique doesn't make much sense.

That's something we really focus on: bringing the most natural flavour to life, then using modern techniques to produce it in an easier and faster way, without losing the time and rhythm needed to achieve that flavour profile.

I think it's an amazing foundation to be part of this country and this cultural heritage. Every day I feel proud to be Portuguese and to have this giant cookbook surrounding us.

Even for a foreign chef cooking in Portugal, it's impossible not to fall in love with the quality of the products.

Take something as simple as a barnacle. You cook it in nicely salted water with coriander, garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaf for about one minute. That's it. The product speaks for itself.

Of course, you can adapt recipes. You can make a chickpea stew using barnacles instead of codfish or meat.

Portuguese cuisine is incredibly vast. You can adapt many things because the flavour identity is so strong. If you respect the technique, the tradition, the cultural heritage, and the seasonality of the product, then you're free to combine ideas without losing the sense of being Portuguese.

I believe you need to preserve the identity of the place where you are.

Even if one day I open an Italian restaurant, a seafood restaurant, or something completely different, there will always be something Portuguese there. It's almost like opening a French restaurant in São Paulo—you naturally expect there to be a little bit of Brazil inside it.

Portuguese food is so rich that you can play with it endlessly. You just have to be careful not to overload it, because at the same time it's incredibly simple.

Sometimes all you need is a beautiful broth made from the best fish or seafood, some coriander, and garlic. That's Portuguese.

Somehow, you feel that it's no longer your grandmother's house.

Even in the finest Michelin-starred restaurants in Portugal—Casa de Chá da Boa Nova, Belcanto, The Yeatman—you'll still find a lot of Portuguese scents and flavours in those dishes. That's the greatest tribute we can pay to our heritage: understanding how far we can take a dish without losing its roots.

At Broto, though, it's a little different. We want to find a balance between a modern way of presenting food and traditional techniques and cooking methods. Whether it's long, slow cooking or extremely fresh preparations using the best seasonal ingredients, it's about bringing those elements together.

That balance has become a really nice mix for us as a restaurant, and I think it's been working very well.

Even for the team, it's important. I like having young cooks in the kitchen who don't focus only on highly technical recipes. Sometimes it's simply about finding the best clove of garlic, the best olive oil, the freshest ingredients, preparing everything on the same day, and cooking it in the best possible way.

For me, that's the best way to showcase Portuguese gastronomy.

I think it's when all of those elements come together.

Even now, we still feel we're in the process. We've only been open for half a year, and every day we're testing recipes, working with products from countless suppliers, and refining what we do.

Every dish we put on the menu has to make us say, "Yes, this belongs to this house." It has to make sense here.

We want beautiful products, traditional cooking methods, and refined presentation. The presentation should respect the ingredient, enhance it, and also match the atmosphere of the restaurant, the interior, and the style of service.

The service is relaxed. It's not as formal as a Michelin-starred restaurant, but it's refined enough that guests feel everything is served properly, with respect, with love, and with the most humble and hospitable way of being Portuguese.

I think every restaurant finds its own path every time it creates new dishes and develops new menus throughout the year.

We need to taste constantly. We need to experiment with different ways of presenting food.

A great grilled dish starts with great charcoal. Great meat starts with an honest supplier. We're still building all of that. It takes a long time to create something unique with a strong identity.

But we believe in that identity.

We don't want to simply execute recipes. There are many dishes we could put on the menu, but not all of them belong here.

It's about testing and then feeling that almost mystical side of the kitchen—tasting something, feeling the surroundings, and suddenly knowing: "Yes, this is it. This is how we should present it."

I'm a massive fan of fish, seafood, and especially greens. I absolutely love vegetables, greens, and fruit.

That's something you'll always find on my menu, at Broto or in any future project I'm involved in. There will always be a stronger focus on fish, seafood, and vegetables than on meat.

I love meat, but I prefer finding an honest supplier who can provide consistency throughout the year. Then, when game season arrives, we can work with venison, pigeon, partridge, or wild boar, which are all deeply rooted in Portuguese tradition.

I'd rather focus on that seasonality than have five or six different meats on the menu—duck, chicken, pork, beef—all year round.

Right now we only have two meat dishes, and I think that balance gives guests more possibilities.

Of course, that's also menu engineering. It's about understanding what guests want and expect while still protecting the concept of the restaurant.

Because if you don't defend your concept, you lose your identity.

And I think that's one of the biggest struggles for many restaurants today—a lack of identity.

It's very easy to copy what everyone else is doing. Every day you open Instagram or other media platforms and see beautiful presentations, and you think, "Let's do something like that."

The difficult part is shaping your own personality.

That's probably why some restaurants take longer than others to establish themselves.

But you can't give up.

Refinement isn't about making something tighter or more organised just for the sake of it. You refine because it allows the product to be presented at a higher level.

Otherwise, just make a beautiful homemade sausage with a great sauce—and that's enough.

That's really what we try to do at Broto.

Elegant food, prepared in a very rustic way, using traditional methods.

And when you taste it, you can feel that.

I don't think I'm the best person to answer that. [Laughs.]

But yes, I've been in love with food since I was a kid, and I constantly fall in love with it all over again. I enjoy cooking everything—from an amazing pizza to a simple chickpea stew with codfish, which is actually the next dish we're putting on the menu.

I'm evolving as a cook, and I bring my team along on that journey.

Even in just six months, Broto has changed a lot. We started in a much tighter, more delicate way because that's often what happens when you begin a new project. You have a strong organisation, and naturally the food becomes very precise and sharp.

But it doesn't have to stay like that.

The most important thing is what we've already talked about: the supplier, the ingredient, respecting the product, and respecting the guests who choose to sit at your table every day.

They're the people who make your restaurant possible, so you always want to give something back to them.

At Broto we don't have a tasting menu, except for private groups or larger parties. We work almost entirely à la carte because it gives us much more flexibility in terms of seasonality, portion sizes, and the way we want people to experience the dishes.

I think both approaches have their pros and cons.

But honestly, in the world we live in today, shared plates make much more sense to me because they bring me back to my own memories, my heritage, and to the oldest human way of eating.

Food is meant to be shared.

It's meant to gather people around the table. That's why we even have this large communal table here.

Of course, you can enjoy the dishes on your own, but I don't think it creates the same kind of experience.

At the same time, kitchens and restaurant teams are evolving.

Today we try to build more flexible teams. Instead of the traditional brigade where one person prepares the sauce, another the garnish, another the fish, and another the meat, we try to give each cook responsibility for an entire dish from beginning to end.

That makes people much more responsible for what they create, and it also reduces stress during service.

You're no longer waiting for the sauce from one station, the garnish from another, and the meat from somewhere else. One person finishes one complete dish.

It's a system that works very well for us.

Maybe it wouldn't work in very high-volume restaurants, but every restaurant has to adapt according to its own needs.

When you believe in food to share, it also changes how you think about ingredients.

If an incredible violet prawn arrives from the Algarve, sometimes all you need to do is grill it.

There's nothing else to add.

You could peel it, turn it into a sauce, or create something much more elaborate—and in some restaurants that absolutely makes sense.

But here, we prefer to let the product speak for itself.

We work with very small plates, one-bite dishes, and then larger plates that become more memorable moments of the meal, like our sorra, a slow-cooked bean stew.

That's the philosophy I believe in for Broto more than anything else.

Definitely.

I actually think it started many years ago.

The growth of Michelin-starred restaurants helped enormously because it encouraged restaurants to define their own identities and stand firmly behind them.

It gave restaurants more responsibility.

Today, alongside Michelin-starred restaurants, you also have an entire generation of restaurants in the €50 to €100 per person range that are doing remarkable work.

The restaurant scene has grown tremendously over the last few years, especially after...

Well, I don't think there will be enough space for everyone forever. Eventually, only the best restaurants will survive.

There is an incredible amount of choice right now, but I think that's simply part of the growth Portugal—and especially Lisbon and Porto—has experienced over the past years.

For me, as a Portuguese chef, it's something I'm genuinely proud of.

There are so many colleagues, both established and new, opening restaurants with different concepts.

Most importantly, many of them are still deeply connected to Portuguese flavours and Portuguese cooking.

And that's incredibly important.

I think there will always be a percentage of guests who enjoy visiting fine dining restaurants. I've seen that over the years, and I believe it will continue.

Whether we have enough tourism to sustain all the different restaurant concepts that exist today, I'm not so sure.

I think we're still figuring things out. We're still learning how to dance in the rain.

With so many restaurants and so many concepts, we have to keep adapting. We need to create different experiences within our restaurants, and we constantly have to reshape ourselves.

Even the guests are still discovering what they want.

One day they want one kind of experience; the next day they want something completely different.

But one thing I do know is that people are looking for more human experiences.

And you can find that in a neighbourhood restaurant, in a fine dining restaurant, or anywhere in between.

As long as you don't lose the sense of being humble, being human, and treating people the way you would like to be treated yourself, I think that's always the best place to start.

And then, of course, you have to stay true to your concept and believe in it.

That's really important.

Thank you. It was a pleasure.