Alessandra Montagne: Brazil’s star chef in Paris 

0:13Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and for today's episode I head to Paris to speak with the fantastic Brazilian chef Alessandra Montagne. Born in Rio, she moved to France in 1999. She began cooking for dinner parties at homes and is now the owner and chef of two restaurants in the city, Nosso and Tempero, with plenty of exciting new ventures soon, including a restaurant at the Louvre Museum. Here is my conversation with her.

0:49First I opened Tempeiro in 2012. I opened a first restaurant. His name is Tempeiro. It's a good little, very little restaurant. It's 20th place. It's my first restaurant in Paris. Before that, I walked with William Lodeur, Yadeline Gratta, Yannick Alenot. So I decided to open a restaurant because it was very difficult for me with children. And I was 13 and the middle of kitchen in this time, it was so machiste and difficult. And the chef was violent with me and it's unacceptable. table. So I decided to open my restaurant because with my rules. So I open first Tempero and 10 years after I found this place and I fell in love because the place it's very, very beautiful.

1:55I have a natural place with a lot of plants. I fell in love and I feel very very good here in this place though I bought Nossau one week before Covid so I sold the temper and my money was in bank and I bought Nossau and everything is stopped in the world and I have no money no Nossau no tempero nothing for one year I'm sorry That's crazy. Here we are. It's a success. It's a Michelin star classroom. People are so interested. Yes, it was completely crazy. So I found another job in the pharmaceutical industry. Wow. I began general director in the pharmaceutical industry and it was completely crazy for one year and a half.

2:59and uh 2021 i opened no so question about the cuisine of course you're brazilian and i know we love brazilian food there is a lot of brazilian elements but you also mix there's some asian elements here and there explain to us that what type of food can people eat here so in the so the first thing you eat here it's a pound because i am mineta i the best food in brazil if i may Yes, yes, we eat very good in Minas Gerais. I was born in Rio, so I grew up in Minas Gerais, in the middle of nowhere. So I made a pão de queijo with my grandmother recipe, so I can tell you and give you, because it's a very good and easy recipe.

3:48So I put caviar with pão de queijo. It's very nice. Pão de queijo is caviar, French caviar. and the second thing you eat is coxinha because I sold the coxinha when I live in Brazil it's my job Coxinha is chicken pastry for those who don't never tried it Yes, yes, it's chicken pastry, it's very, very good so it's my recipe when I sold it in my old life In Brazil It's my first or second life, I don't know, I have a lot of life and it's a bad very bad part of my life so for a long time I forgot coxinha never more I eat coxinha it was very difficult because it's send me a lot of bad memories so now I put coxinha here and everybody's happy everybody eat coxinha and feel something oh it's very nice oh I'm just coxinha but behind this coxinha they have a crazy story you're reclaiming the coxinha Yes.

4:51Good. Yes. Alessandra, this year is a very important year for Brazil here in France. You know, all presidents have met Macron and Lula. There's a lot of cultural things. Do you feel there's a lot of interest in your restaurants this year as well? Yes, yes. I have a lot of Brazilian here and President Lula invited me to eat with him and President Macron in Elysée. So I go to Elysée and it was a very, very nice moment for me because I love this place. It's very beautiful. And I can see a lot of people and friends and I feel my work in France for 25 years. I can go there because I work very hard.

5:37So it was a very emotional moment for me because like a key in my head, a turning key. Oh, wow. So it was hard, it was very very hard for a lot of years. I was focused in my work, focused, focused, focused. And one moment proved everybody, oh come in here, come in. I know you, you're very good, you're good, you're power. Me? No, no, no, no, I just start cooking. I'm just a chef. Good chef, good chef. And this is your moment because you have nosso and tempero and now... Louvre. The Louvre as well? Yes, I have a restaurant. How does he work? Tell us about the Louvre. It's a crazy history. I have a chef, a little bit friend, but it's a good chef for me.

6:25It's Alain Ducasse. He's invited me to take a part of a team. He thinks, oh, I have 15 people, chefs, young chefs, or not very young, but chefs in France. It's have my successes. So he chose a loft of chefs and he chose five chefs, especially for this big project in the Louvre Museum. So in the Into de Louvre, into, okay, not in carrossel, Into de Louvre, they have five restaurants. So you made a project together. this project takes two years of walks and elsewhere and the picture and the taste of cooking a lot of things we win this project they have maybe 200 chefs and we was finalist and we win so now i have into the louvre museum one big restaurant i cannot tell now the menu and the name because louvre want to tell this in few months, maybe September, October.

7:36And my restaurant opened in November, December. Yes, it's a good and very, very beautiful restaurant. I'm back in December. Yes, yes, yes, I invite you to for the open. Wow. We will make soft opening for people, journalists and friends and family. And you are welcome. What about Portugal? Tell us about the connection system. Yes, yes. Yes. There's so many things. Yeah. Alessandra, you have this one. So in Portugal, I have a signature of restaurants named Cicero in the very beautiful restaurant Galerie d 'Art, Art Gallery. So I love this painting, Cicero Gias. It's a Brazilian painting. So I have a lot of painting for him.

8:22And the restaurant is beautiful. People love it. And I'm so happy because it's a beautiful history for Cicero Giles and Cicero restaurants. Alessandro, I want to ask, besides coxinha and bun de queijo, can you tell us a dish that you're very good at? Could be Brazilian or could be whatever you choose. My preferred dish? Feijoada, of course. Oh my God. Do you love feijoada? I love feijoada, of course. I'm Brazilian, I love it. Yes, it's good now. Do you make feijoada? Yes, in Tempero, my order... I reopened tempero six years later here, just in front of Nosso. Every Friday night we made the feijoada.

9:05So it's a very good feijoada, like in Brazil. So overall, do you think it's a good moment for Brazilian food outside Brazil? Yes. Because for a period there was not much of it. You see a lot of Mexican restaurants, Peruvian. But now I see there's a nice selection of Brazilian chefs like yourself representing Brazil. Yes, because I have in this moment a lot of good good good chefs in Brazil. It's a new generation of chefs and they made a lot of trips abroad and showed the Brazilian gastronomy and the world begin to understand the Brazilian gastronomy. It's very very nice.

9:53That was Alessandra Montagna there. For more information, go to nosso-restaurant.fr. The show was edited by Jack Dewars, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. Thank you for listening.