São Paulo – A typical Brazilian restaurant within a women-only club in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Such is Boteko Brasil, owned by the Rio-based businesswoman Alessandra Cardoso, which opened in 2011 and is frequented by Brazilian, European and Arab females.
The holder of a degree in business administration and living in the Emirates since 1994, the businesswoman has always wanted to work in the food industry. “I was missing [typical Brazilian foods like] brigadeiro and empadinha very much,” she says. After making her mind up to set up her own business, she spent a year adapting Brazilian recipes to the ingredients and the tools that were available to her in Dubai.
She was a regular at the Dubai Ladies Club, a club strictly for females, and chose to open her restaurant there. “Everyone here loves Brazil. You say you are a Brazilian and doors open up,” she says.
By the way, even before she moved to Dubai for good, she was well familiar with the Arab receptiveness. Cardoso is the daughter of Cyro Gabriel do Espírito Santo Cardoso, the first Brazilian ambassador in the Emirates, in 1978, and she had already lived there with her father.
She says snacks are the top-selling items at the restaurant. “I cook empadão made from palmetto, chicken, shrimp, croquettes with meat, codfish or salad, cheese bread, rice patties, French rolls, pizza, polenta, etc,” she says. Pastries include guava paste, brigadeiro (chocolate bonbons) and doce de leite (milk-based candy). The beverage menu includes guaraná-based soda and juices made from acerola, cashew, cajá, passion fruit and grapes.
The restaurant’s team comprises seven people, all women, from India and the Philippines. The only man in the staff is the driver who makes deliveries, but does not enter the club’s premises.
Customer preferences vary, she says. “Arab women love candy. They want brigadeiro cakes and quindim (another typical Brazilian sweet). The Europeans are more health-conscious and like salads; Brazilian women, in turn, will often order empadinhas and coxinhas,” she says.
Aside from the restaurant menu, Cardoso offers a frozen takeaway food line. She also does catering at parties, exhibitions, conferences, and training sessions, parades, and beneficent meetings at Boteko itself.
The success of the business is bearing fruit, and by February 2014 Cardoso will open a second unit of Boteko Brasil, where she will serve typical dishes from different regions of Brazil. The new unit will serve men, women and children.
Service
Boteko Brasil
Place: Dubai Ladies Club (women only, non-members are admitted)
Address: Jumeirah Beach Road, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Telephone: +971 600 56 2227
Website: www.botekobrasil.com
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
