Alberto Landgraf

The Path

London service formed part of the technical base for this cooking, with Alberto Landgraf working in kitchens with Tom Aikens and Gordon Ramsay before returning to São Paulo as chef at Epice (2008–2015). The current platform is Oteque, where he has been chef and proprietor since 2018.

The Work Today

Modern Brazilian tasting-menu work at Oteque is organized around local and fresh ingredients, with quality and ethical farming practices treated as operating standards rather than decoration. The menu is seafood-led and seasonal, placing fish and seafood at the center of the meal instead of using them as secondary notes. Japanese heritage enters the cooking through simplicity and technical precision, not through a fixed set of ingredients. In practice, that means influence shows up in method, proportion, and restraint. Acidity and texture are recurring points of control, and the work also extends into leadership and creative process—the kitchen discipline that determines how ideas are tested before they become plates. The account of choosing the trade is practical rather than sentimental. Alberto Landgraf has described the appeal as a response to repetition and to the pressure of real service: "I was always afraid of having a boring life or having to do the same thing every day so when I saw a proper kitchen for the first time, I realised that is what I wanted to do."

In Their Words “It was perfect in the kitchen because there was adrenaline, intensity, mathematics, history, culture and creativity. There was everything in one place so I decided to become a chef.”

Acclaim

Recognition has followed both the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro phases of the work: Michelin star for Epice, Two Michelin stars for Oteque, South American rising star for Epice, and Listed among Latin America's top 50 restaurants for Oteque.