I am a proud native of Miami, born to a Portuguese father and a Hispanic mother. I was raised in the hospitality industry, practically living in the Sheraton Bal Harbor Resort, where my mother was the director of recreation and spa while my father managed a prestigious restaurant on Fisher Island. The staff at the Sheraton treated me like their own son while I ran around exploring the massive resort, observing the efforts it took to curate true hospitable experiences for their guests.
As I grew into my teens, I began to rebel and consumed extremely processed foods regularly. I had no intention of pursuing a career in hospitality or food. That is, until I was about 19 years old when I got a severe infection that normal antibiotics could not resolve. I was hospitalized for three days, where they administered the strongest antibiotics they had intravenously for the duration of my stay. After that, my health took a rapid, noticeable decline. At the same time, I had just started a job as a busboy on Lincoln Road that I really enjoyed, especially playing a small role in the organized chaos of the kitchen.
I began having trouble digesting food, severe skin conditions arose, fatigue paralyzed me, and a heavy darkness washed over me. I sought help from dozens of conventional doctors until it eventually began to feel like I was going in circles, receiving the same scripted responses. I researched my symptoms every night, finding immense amounts of mixed information from different holistic approaches. I essentially used my body as a test dummy, first trying many “quick fixes” such as flushes and liver cleanses—much too intense for my fragile state. At this time, I was also going to community college. However, instead of going to class as I should, I would explore downtown Miami, where I stumbled upon a juice bar with a bookshelf filled with books on Ayurvedic medicine. I began to visit it every day instead of class and finished three different books rather quickly. This was where I first became aware of our bodies being apart of nature, it began to click for me.
Late September of that same year, I had my first trip to Portugal planned with my father to see where he comes from. We explored the country, eating the greatest food I had ever had in my life. After exploring Lisbon & the southern coast, we made our way up to the north, arriving at a millennia-old village called Aldeia Velha. This is where my ancestors lived and built their life. You could feel their presence, as it was still relatively untouched and felt as if you stepped into the past. I walked through the garden in front of the family house, where I spotted a huge red fruit bigger than my hand. It was a tomato! But I had never seen a tomato like this—so big, so red, as if it were about to burst. Instinctively, I took a bite. Sweet, slightly tart, bursting with juice. I couldn’t believe it. My body responded instantly, as if it were taking a deep breath after being underwater to its limit. The question of “Why is this tomato so incredible, and why have I never experienced this?” stuck with me and became my north star still to this day.
That night, my family and I prepared dinner with food from the garden, cooking over an open fire in the old stone oven. We sat together, passing the food around the table, breathing in the crisp mountain air, laughing. I just kept eating and eating as if my body could never get full. Another realization washed over me: “This is what eating is supposed to be.”
Through my research, experiences, and a bit of instinct, I had a sneaking suspicion that our body’s health is deeply intertwined with how food is grown and distributed. I decided to simplify my approach and attempt to eat only foods grown with at least close to the conditions of that tomato and not processed whatsoever. Essentially, I began to eat only organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Quickly, I realized “organic” still did not come close to whatever that tomato was, but that would be explored later in my journey. At the time, it was the best I could do. And so, I began to heal, quickly.
My body finally had help and time to recover. I was marveling at the regenerative abilities of our bodies and injected with so much inspiration! What should I do with this information? Who can I help who was just like me or worse off?
I decided rather than become a practitioner and tell people how to do it, it was more important to make it more accessible, more approachable, and more delicious. Rather than say, “Do this,” I wanted to say, “Try this,” in hopes of facilitating an experience similar to the one I had in Portugal, where words were simply too limited to communicate impact.
At 22 years old, I had the vague idea of learning the food industry so that I could recreate parts of it, curating it for the wellness of consumers’ bodies and minds. Therefore, it was a natural choice for me to seek any position at the best place I could find that was already taking these values into account. That place was called Myapapaya in Fort Lauderdale, where I began working as a cashier.
I fell in love with the fast-paced environment, greeting regulars and building relationships with them. The rhythm was intoxicating, and the lines were out the door. I was so grateful to just be feeding people like me food I knew was going to help them, even if they didn’t know it. One day, it got so busy that a cook asked me to come help on the line, despite my knowing nothing about that part of the restaurant yet. I jumped in right away, and it felt natural to make food in such a systematic way, feeling satisfaction for every order finished with love. From there, I discovered my knack for creativity with flavors and food as I learned every position in the kitchen, eventually being promoted to manager and later opening a second location, where I became the general manager.
Still young at 24, after a while as general manager at the second location, I felt an urge to expand my culinary skills. I began to realize that the chef is the rope that ties the whole food system together, and my culinary skills weren’t yet where I desired them to be. So, I left when I heard of a restaurant named “DUNE” opening at a prestigious new Auberge residence building. The chefs were coming from Michelin-starred restaurants I admired, such as Le Bernardin in New York and Lasarte-Oria in San Sebastian, Spain. I took whatever position I could get and began frying French fries. Quickly, the chefs embraced me and personally taught me countless techniques that I craved to learn, despite the food not being along the same lines as healing food from healing sources. I soon moved up to executive sous chef, and then the pandemic hit.
My first reaction to the world shutting down was to do what I had been wanting to do since I returned from Portugal the first time: volunteer on organic farms and learn their ways. I let my apartment lease expire, went to the WWOOF website, selected an organic farm in California, and booked my ticket. While waiting for my flight at the airport, I received an email from Blue Hill at Stone Barns (a two-Michelin-starred restaurant with a farm) informing me that I had been selected for a grant I had forgotten I applied for. The program, called Harvest Corps, was for students or unemployed cooks to work on organic farms that needed help, in partnership with WWOOF.
I participated in this program for three months, complete with weekly courses where we learned from leading botanists, mycologists, artisans, farmers, and chefs about our food and ecosystems. I connected with countless people at the forefront of innovative food system solutions, learning more than I could have imagined. Upon returning to Miami, I was filled with inspiration, armed with knowledge, and backed by a new network of incredible people. So, I opened my own business focused on what I deemed the perfect representative of a healthy closed-loop food system of the future: mushrooms.
I began going to farmers’ markets, small events, large festivals, and cooking for private clients, educating through these experiences along the way. It was an expansive, fast-moving time filled with community and opportunity. Soon, I developed the urge to host a dinner of my own using only local producers to give them a platform and demonstrate Miami’s unique surrounding ecosystems. To dive so deeply into the local environments & present them in an honorable way to consumers was the most fulfilling act I had performed in my career so far, thus it became the model for my culinary approach moving forward.
From there, I met and partnered with the owner of Paradise Farms and the Sacred Space Miami in an attempt to build a culinary institute focused on hyper-local regenerative farming and healthier food systems. I worked with the farm to create a more diverse growing plan, hosted amazing events, and even created a line of ferments and preserves to add value to the farming operation using surplus harvests. However, I began to feel heavy fatigue. My physical health was in order, but there was a weight on my spirit. When I was honest with myself, I realized the fast pace of this rapidly growing city & demands of the position within this context had drained me. It became apparent that I was craving more connection to my Self, and my ancestry that remained a mystery to me. To understand how they lived, ate, and coexisted in civilizations before industrial intervention.
Once again, I made an instinctual decision to return to the old village in northern Portugal, Aldeia Velha, where I would live in their ways while exploring my internal and external world. Life slowed down. I met the villagers, learned about my family who had come and gone, watched the shepherds lead their sheep around the valley to graze, and observed the foliage as it changed. I enjoyed the fruits of generations past as they came into season: cherries, oranges, chestnuts, persimmons, loquats, walnuts, figs, and so much more.
As time passed, I connected with locals and foreigners alike. To my surprise, so many people had come to this remote area seeking a different way of life, one more connected to our Earth. I began helping elders who have preserved ancient techniques and traditions, making incredible sheep cheese, planting gardens, harvesting olives, cooking very old recipes, and foraging herbs and mushrooms. I began to deeply connect with the place, understanding its abundance and its troubles. All these ways of life, all this synchronicity with the surrounding wild ecosystems, all this precious knowledge imperative for creating a progressive future in harmony with the Earth—it is at risk of being lost with this last generation of elders still here. In Portugal, younger generations have left long ago to pursue careers and city life abroad or on the coast, leaving these priceless villages and ways of life behind.
My wish is to absorb and preserve this knowledge while this generation is still here, to then use it with non-disruptive innovations and creativity to slowly build these villages back up—bringing them into the future as places where people can live in sync with the rhythms of the land, of self, and in community. I wish to create a replicable, not scalable, model that can be applied anywhere, empowering communities and individuals everywhere.
This brings us full circle to the present day. On this website, you can see how I am offering myself to achieve these goals. I am still trying to fully answer the questions that the tomato evoked in me, to then recreate all conditions necessary for such a profound manifestation to become the norm in all our lives. It is an everchanging journey, where all data and philosophies must be consistently re-examined for accuracy and relevance. These are the first steps necessary to build, brick by brick, an abundant reality where Man & nature are once again taking care of each other. To tap into the seemingly "magical" technologies of the Earth that are readily available to us.
.
