With the Brazil Olympics in full swing, the focus is on the athletes, as it should. But lets pretend that the Olympics were all about food, and instead of competitive athletes you had chefs. So what line up of chefs would represent Brazil?
We took a stab at our own list of Brazilian all-stars. All of these chefs are incredibly impressive—one was just in an episode of the second season of Chef’s Table, and another spent seven years cooking for the President. One used to be a model, for crying out loud! Read on to find out what else they’ve accomplished while cooking up a storm, and what has made them stand out from all the rest. One thing is for sure: Brazilian food is about to take over.
Alex Atala
Chef Atala has covered a lot of culinary ground: the 48-year-old chef has published a cookbook, opened two restaurants, and most recently Pinheiros Market, he was just highlighted in the second season of A Chef’s Table , and his 17-year-old Michelin-starred restaurant was once again included in the Top Restaurants in the World List, at #11. A meal at D.O.M. is not a representation of traditional Brazilian fare like rice and beans, but instead an elevated version which highlights the delicacies found throughout this exotic country. Essentially, in realizing that he could never cook French food as well as the French, Atala took the French technique and applied it when cooking with Brazilian ingredients. It was from that moment on, that he truly found his place in the food world.
Atala is considered one of the first chefs to truly give Brazilian cuisine a voice in the international community—first for being considered one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2013, and secondly for being the first and only Brazilian chef to receive two Michelin stars as of 2015. He has pushed the envelope by integrating the ingredients that the Amazon has to offer and educating people about its unique culinary heritage.
He is a chef, but he is a hunter in every sense of the word, and has been one ever since he was a teenager; always looking to learn more and importance of the cycle of life. He has gone beyond the restaurants and extended the learning through his organization called Instituto ATA —a place where friends of Atala have come together to spread and emphasize the countries biodiversity and its traditions.
He most recently took the ATA philosophy a step further by essentially rebranding a section of Mercado Pinheiros , a market that has existed within Mercado Municipal for hundreds of years. He developed this in an attempt to reprioritize how people approach food shopping in Sao Paulo, Atala’s idea behind the market is to sell region-specific ingredients from across Brazil, therefore creating more knowledge about what the country has to offer as a whole. And from what it looks like, the movement continues.
Rodrigo Oliveira
Oliveira is considered one of the brightest most talented chefs in Brazil right now by various Brazilian publications such as Veja SP, GQ, and O Globo. Not to mention that he landed #16 spot in the list of 50 Latin America’s Best Restaurants in 2014. H has truly been a part of the movement that has successfully exposed all the ingredients this country truly has to offer. How? At the young age of 35, Oliveira has several restaurants under his wing. A few years back he took over Mocoto , a restaurant that was originally a storefront started by his father in the 1970s. In doing so he has continued to make the cuisine accessible and relevant amongst the community (and beyond) by keeping dishes authentic while using modern techniques to reinvent Northeastern Amazonian Brazilian. What does that mean exactly? After having traveled through all parts of Brazil, he came back incredibly inspired by what he found, especially with the idea of cooking with local ingredients that aren’t as commonly used in Brazilian cooking.
Due to his success, Oliveira has gone on to expand his concept by opening Esquina Mocoto , a quaint spot outside Sao Paulo’s epicenter, where chef Oliveira decided to open despite fans wanting him to open up in a more central place. A more youthful vibe than his original, Esquina has a graffiti mural done by a local artist on one side of the wall, and a playful cocktail list that puts Brazilian twists on traditional cocktails.
Esquina also highlights regional food producers while keeping the menu adventurous with items like pig feet ceviche and manioc gnocchi. And for dessert, black cotton candy. Mocoto Café , which serves a variety of breads, coffee, and house specialties, and Mocoto Aqui , a food truck Brazilian pork cracklings, or Baiao de Dois, a typical black eyed pea & rice dish from Ceara. One of the most remarkable dishes of Oliveira’s is the carne de sol served at Mocoto & at Esquina. Roughly translated as sun-dried beef, it’s an ingredient that appears predominantly throughout his menu in different renditions, from a variation served with rice, beans and confit red onion, to a version served with roasted garlic, chili pepper, and manioc chips.
Helena Rizzo
Chef Rizzo was named The World’s Best Female Chef in 2014 by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, in no small part because of her compelling, ingredient-focused creations.
At Mani , her Sao Paulo Michelin-starred restaurant that opened its doors in 2006 being her most prized location. Alongside her Catalan husband, Daniel Redondo, Chef Rizzo creates food that takes Brazil’s freshest ingredients like heart of palm, or Jabuticaba , but using techniques that both of them acquired after spending time in Spain and Italy. Initially, the Mani menu was set to be a vegetarian one, but that’s certainly not what came to be, instead Rizzo decided that as long as they used the best quality ingredients all would be cohesive with their philosophy.
A night in the life of a diner in her restaurant might consist of eating a ceviche of the cashew fruit called caju or an gnocchi made from manicoc (instead of potato) and arrowroot with a dashi of tucupi , a yellow liquid that’s extracted from the manioc root itself. Beyond Mani, she has opened Padoca do Mani , which is essentially a café & bakery, then Casa Manioca mostly for events and weddings, and Restaurante Manioca which is a combination of what Mani has to offer, in conjunction with what the bakery has to offer; best of both worlds. Looks like Chef Rizzo and team are taking over Sao Paolo, one shop at a time.
Roberta Sudbrack
Chef Sudbrack has been cooking for guests in her two story bistro-like namesake restaurant in Rio de Janeiro since 2008, following a seven-year-long stint cooking at the presidential palace—no big deal. She too has graced the Best Latin Restaurants in the World list multiple times, and her cooking has also been awarded her a Michelin Star. Michelin inspectors have said that “she produces visceral, emotive, and authentic cuisine, where the genius is in the delicious flavor and lack of pretension, combined with complete respect for ingredients.”
Her degustation menu changes daily all according to what’s available at the markets, and in addition to creating new dishes daily, Sudbrack released a cookbook in 2014 entitled Eu Sou do Camarao Ensopadinho com Chu Chu that features many of the dishes that she has created in her restaurant, but for home cooks. Chef Sudbrack is known for being a chef that pays homage to the traditional dishes of Brazil, bringing to life ingredients that she deems some might find boring, like okra, or chayote. It’s been said that she prefers traditional techniques over modern ones. The self-taught chef is also especially beloved for her desserts, especially her banana ice, a mix of banana ice cream and sorbet. Her latest project has been a home delivery service called RSCASA that allows diners to order her food to their own homes.
Felipe Bronze
This CIA graduate made a name for himself cooking in trendy Rio restaurants like Sushi Leblon and Zuka . As chef who spent quite some time abroad working in kitchens such as Nobu and Le Bernadin in New York, his career began at the age of 15 while working on a family business dedicated to creating airline meals for a Rio based airport called Santos Dumont. However, Chef Bronze came into his own when he opened his own placed called Z Contemporeaneo in 2004,
He went on to open the first rendition of Oro in 2010, where at his first location he was known for using liquid nitrogen quite cleverly. These days, at his more casual, grill-focused location, he’s using kitchen equipment and ingredients from Japan, Argentina and Brazil; the three cuisines which have influenced his cooking style the most. According to O Globo, Bronze stated that he was wanting to simplify his life, and those of his diners. He went on to say that, when the food is good, then it’s ready to be eaten. And that he based much of his latest approach to combining how he prefers to eat at home, with the techniques he’s acquired through his life in restaurants. Having been awarded a Michelin star for his first take on Oro, chances are his new approach will grant him the same prestige.
