From Angola to Beato
➔ Soul Kitchen & Bar
“My name is Fernando Rosa”, the owner will greet you. Fernando smiles a lot, in a very warm and welcoming way. We’re still standing and he’s already a contender for the hostess with the mostest.
Turns out he’s not just the owner and host of this place, called Soul Kitchen & Bar. He’s the Head Chef as well. And we ask: how did that happen? That’s when he tells us: “I was a professional football player for many years. I played for Benfica and Sporting as a kid, I had an international career in Germany and Ireland.”
That sounds like a different story, but now we want to know more.
He calls it luck
When Fernando’s football career ended, he realized he had a knack for events. “On my vacations from football, I used to help organize parties for other football players and friends. I would naturally step into roles with direct contact with the guests, like the door or the bar, but I also enjoyed helping in the kitchen.”
He started working as a freelancer for different clubs and parties in Lisbon and by 2009 he was opening his first place: a piano bar located in a quiet village outside of Lisbon. Food was not a part of the concept, but soon enough Fernando’s friends and customers, who liked his cooking, started asking him to add some of his snacks to the bar menu. “I was not too psyched about it, but once I started I never stopped serving food to people. My luck!”
Back to the roots
When the global economy pulled a 2008, eventually Portugal got hit. In 2011 Fernando took a break from depressed Europe and accepted an invitation to go work in his native country of Angola, where he got the chance to work in all the finest Luanda restaurants.
“I worked at Cafe del Mar, an iconic 20 year old place by the sea, but also in luxury dining clubs downtown. I got to learn from people who had a lot of experience."
"I learned from chefs who were coming from Dubai and the Maldives, with wonderful training and creativity. I worked with people at the bar who came from London and Copenhagen. I tried to absorb as much as I could from them, listening to each briefing and watching how they kept the service efficient”, Fernando recalls.
After 5 years, it was time to return to Lisbon and seek new challenges. “I didn’t see myself working for other people anymore, it was time to start something of my own again”.
And that’s how Soul Kitchen & Bar was born.
The bairrismo of Bairro Alto
The first of Fernando’s “Souls” was in Príncipe Real: a small restaurant with cocktails and no more than 15 sittings. It was a calculated risk and in two years it started to feel too small. And then Covid hit. Two years went by.
As confinements started to lift, customers started calling to ask if they were reopening any time soon. So in 2021 a new, larger Soul opened in Rua da Rosa.
Fernando likes to reminisce about Bairro Alto: “it was a totally new experience. Only by working or living there can you understand the bairrismo (neighborhood spirit) that still exists there. Everybody knows one another, people look out for each other, people gossip and make jokes with each other. I really liked it and I kept a lot of the good friends I made there”.
Another two years went by and once again the place was beginning to feel too small. “We had 28 sittings split by two small rooms and we were getting requests to serve groups of 40 people”, Fernando tells us. And then the landlord got an order from the City to perform some changes to the building’s façade. Again, the choice was obvious: to move. That was eight months ago…
Soul far so good
Today Fernando is the proud owner of a new Soul Kitchen & Bar, in an old repurposed warehouse in Beato. After closing down in Bairro Alto, he admits he and the team were a bit demoralized. “Opening a new place is not easy. It requires tremendous dedication, love and attention to detail. Each nail counts”. But just after two months they found a new address and by August it was open.
“This is our first project out of the city center and our biggest one, with 50 sittings. It’s not a place of luxury or exuberance. It’s a simple place where we strive to make people feel welcome, where the food is good and the people are nice.
"This is the kind of restaurant we want to be: very down to earth, very transparent with its open kitchen, with an emphasis on quality food”, Fernando explains to us.
Before discovering this building, he didn’t even know the neighborhood. He drove by some times, but didn’t know much about it. Very few months in, he thinks Beato oozing with potential. “We had Madonna spending her birthday in Beato, right?”. Right.
For the time being, Fernando is pleased to see that his regular customers come to Beato, as they did to the former places. But he’s also pleasantly surprised to see so many people from Beato try Soul Kitchen & Bar, and come back for more.
