I grew up in my mother’s restaurant kitchen and was made to wait tables, pick parsley, clear tables, light the fire, among many other tasks. At 14, I was put in charge of the kitchen. That lasted until I was 18, when I got fed up with the smell of fried food and with women avoiding me… So I decided to study journalism and worked for seven years at the newspaper El Cronista, eventually becoming a music critic. During those seven years, I realized that being a critic didn’t make much sense. How could I criticize musicians if I couldn’t play two notes myself? I quit and decided to travel the world. A motorcycle trip through Latin America, like Che—only solo; almost two years in Africa in a 4×4. I came back a different person. The year between my trips from Argentina and Africa, I spent in Lisbon. That’s when I fell back in love with cooking, following instincts instead of chasing opportunities.

And just like that, more than two decades have gone by in Portuguese lands…