São Paulo – In a parody of the United States leader Barack Obama, who referred to Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as “the man,” one may say that when it comes to Brazilian cuisine, Alex Atala “is the man.” Talented, likeable and armed with a cheerful smile, this grandson of Palestinians and Irish has travelled the world. He worked hard in foreign countries and even had a job painting walls, learned how to cook, gained notoriety and took Brazilian cooking to the exclusive circle of haute cuisine.
Last week, his restaurant, D.O.M., climbed 16 positions and ranked 24th in the ranking of the world’s 50 best. The list was published in the British Restaurant Magazine. His office walls, in the city of São Paulo, have no more space for the awards earned here in Brazil. But Atala wants more. He wants cuisine to be a way of preserving the rich biodiversity of the Amazon region. A self-defined stubborn man, he has been working around the world, discussing and introducing typical Brazilian ingredients in lectures and meetings. But let us start from the beginning.
Alex Atala began cooking by accident. He had to, as he wanted to make a living in Europe and needed either a work permit or a student visa, because his time there, without the document, had expired. The trip had been planned out in Brazil. "It was a backpacker thing, I wanted to get to know the culture of the Old World," he recalls.
A lover of music, more precisely good rock and roll, Atala packed his bags and headed for the European continent in a three-month trip. In the schedule, lots of shows. Halfway through the trip, however, the young man decided to stay a bit longer. For a living, he used to paint walls, but then the visa issue came up. At the time, he was in Belgium and a friend mentioned a cuisine course at the Namur School of Hotel Management. It was an option. He enrolled and started on his way, "supported" by the childhood memories that emerged as the chef entered highly traditional cuisines, such as the French and the Italian.
His maternal grandfather, of British-Irish origin, was an expert hunter and taught his grandson his hunting tricks. His father, a son of Palestinians, used to fish. "When I went to work with cuisine, I found out that I already knew how to clean a chicken, chop a fish," he explains, and goes on to say: "Those were moments in which my life story and my professional story converged.”
The memory of Arab cuisine was also activated, this time on the emotional side. Atala tells that when his father came from the Brazilian Midwest to the city of São Paulo, he lived in a small hotel with a fellow, also of Arab origin, who later opened a restaurant, Bambi, in the Jardins neighbourhood of São Paulo. “And we used to meet up there, going to the restaurant was a reason for joy, for partying. It was at Bambi that I had the first kafta in my life, the first raw kibbeh, the first vegetarian safiha. And all of the Arab sweets,” he explains. His family was still living in the city of São Bernardo do Campo, in the Greater São Paulo area, and he used to leave home to go to São Paulo and have lunch at the Bambi. It was also at the restaurant that Atala became acquainted with a few more exotic dishes, such as rooster and turkey testicles. “It was a very special thing that only men were allowed to eat,” he says.
Italian school
With his memory now activated, Memória Atala moved from Belgium to France, where he worked with renowned chefs. From the land of Napoleon he went on to Milan, Italy. The idea in his head, according to Atala, was still that of a boy who wanted to travel, meet people, hear stories and, of course, music, and in cuisine he had found a way of making a living for himself while on the road. In Italy, however, life took another turn. Atala met his first wife and a new type of cuisine, with new rules. “I fell in love,” he says, and with regard to the cuisine, he adds: “Adapting myself was tough, it was a whole other school.”
As one thing always leads to another, the chef thought about returning to Brazil, but was scolded by his wife. “She said: you may leave, but you are leaving without me,” he says. For the lady’s sweet talk and passion, he decided to stay a bit longer and then life changed once again. Atala was promoted for the first time in an Italian kitchen. Happy, he broke the news to his wife and had the conversation that would set the tone of his new enterprises. “She told me: pay attention to what makes you move forward in life, to your true talent,” the chef recollects. Atala did. “I realized that I could cook for real, it was no longer a way of getting by,” he finishes off.
With a considerable cooking baggage and awaiting the arrival of his first son, Atala left Italy and came to São Paulo in 1994. He worked in a few restaurants – some of them were hyped, others were the sensation of the moment – and established himself as a chef here in Brazil. The opportunity to open his own place came with restaurant Namesa, which soon became popular among the city’s hype people and attracted various types of crowds. The award-wining, segmented D.O.M, inaugurated in 1999, was a large bet by the chef, and consumed – still does – a significant share of Atala’s time and energy. The customers are top notch, and every detail needs to be tended to. And we are not just talking about the food. There are the infamous paparazzi, who try to obtain "precious" information about personalities that came to the restaurant: what they had to eat, to drink. Atala does not allow this type of attitude, especially from his employees.
Optimism
With so much work at D.O.M, the chef had to shut down Namesa, or leave it in store for a while (the idea of reopening it is still in his head). Nevertheless, Atala splits himself into many to coordinate a team of approximately 200 people. “No matter how I avoid centralizing, I always have to talk to people, make decisions,” he says. “There are lots of things to do in one single day, lots of directions to give, and I also need to check the bread, the refrigerator etc,” he explains. With so many chores, there is little time left for actually cooking. And life became even more turbulent this year with the opening of Dalva e Dito, also in the Jardins neighbourhood. “Now I own two restaurants again. I believe that within two years, I can manage to organise everything and be more relaxed,” says the optimistic Atala, who still does not have a work desk and is always carrying his laptop computer under his arm, and scoring it against the nearest corner.
He is also optimistic when he talks about Brazil and the many possibilities for the country to develop. Up until last year, the chef travelled a lot talking to students and professionals worldwide about the ingredients of the country and how they may help preserve the Amazon region. “I think I am known around the world because I am Brazilian, not because I am a chef,” he says. Maybe it is the sum of the two attributions and the unique, innovative proposal of the D.O.M. “I look at Brazil from a different perspective. I see the ingredients, the culture, therefore I think that the cuisine can in fact be a tool for preservation,” he says.
To Atala, in order for the forest to be conserved (he prefers this term to the word preserved), it must generate benefits. And that is going to be done by valuing the Brazilian ingredients. Not the soy, the maize, the sugarcane (cultivars that Atala acknowledges as necessary, but calls green deserts because they lead to the “sterilization of the ecosystem”), but rather the pupunha, the tucupi, the pequi, the lady’s finger banana – all of them present in the charming, tasty dishes that Atala creates at D.O.M. “The Amazon is very rich. We all know that, but what people have is a mental image, everyone knows it, they picture the sillouetes, but what few people know is the flavour of the ingredients,” he says. And that is what the cook has been taking out to the world. With the glamour of haute cuisine and the flavour of Brazil, which also has other biomes such as the Savannah, the Atlantic forest, the Pantanal (wetlands), the Pampas (lowlands)…
Contact
Site: www.domrestaurante.com.br
Telephone: (+55 11) 3088-0761 and (+55 11) 3891-1311
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
