i. Biography
Annakaren Fuentes is Executive Chef of O Pastus in Paço de Arcos, where the work draws on a career built across service, operations, finance, and the kitchen. Born in Mexico and living her adulthood in Portugal, she has shaped a Modern Portuguese cooking style open to international influence, with a practical understanding of how a restaurant functions from the pass to the floor to the back office.
The Path
Training across Escola de Hotelaria e Turismo do Estoril, Escuela Superior de Hosteleria de Sevilla, Instituto Superior de Linguas Administrativas, Lisboa, and Kendall College gave Fuentes a base that connected culinary study with hospitality practice and the language of management. That mix shows up early in the structure of her career: not a single-track progression, but a sequence of roles that built range and fluency piece by piece. The front of house came first. At Pure C in 2013, Fuentes worked as waitress, a role centered on timing, precision, and reading a dining room in real time. That same year, she was Management Intern at Davvi Artic Lodge, intern at Nellcôte Restaurant, and Event Coordinator at Loodstien. Taken together, those posts show a career beginning in multiple registers at once, with service, organization, and operations all in view. Operational responsibility followed. At AS Hotel Lisbon, Fuentes worked as Front Office Manager in 2015, placing her at the point where guest experience meets day-to-day hotel rhythm. She then moved into the revenue side of hospitality, first as Assistant Revenue at Hoteis Real Portugal from 2015 to 2016, then as F and B Revenue Manager there from 2016 to 2018. Those roles widened the frame: not only how to serve, but how to structure the business that supports service. The analytical side of restaurant work became more explicit at Corpo Santo Iniciativas Turisticas, where Fuentes worked as F and B Analyst and Cost Controller from 2018 to 2019. She followed that with a period as Senior Analyst at BNP Paribas from 2019 to 2021. The thread running through those years is discipline around numbers, cost, and systems, carried back into restaurant life with a broader commercial view. Since 2020, Fuentes has been manager of Restaurante O Pastus in Lisbon, Portugal, and Executive Chef of O Pastus in Paço de Arcos, Portugal. Those roles place her at the center of the restaurant's daily operation, with culinary direction and management moving together. The progression is steady rather than abrupt, and it reflects years of accumulated responsibility across countries, formats, and functions.
The Work Today
At O Pastus in Paço de Arcos, Fuentes's title as Executive Chef names the point where all those earlier roles converge. The restaurant is the setting for a cooking style described as Modern Portuguese food with international influences, a formulation that matches both her adult life in Portugal and the wider range of her professional background. The kitchen language is contemporary, but the foundations are practical: service knowledge, management experience, and an understanding of how the business side shapes what reaches the table. The result is a profile built from interlocking parts rather than a single defining note. Mexico, Portugal, hospitality, revenue, analysis, and the kitchen all sit inside the same practice. O Pastus is where that practice is now most visible.
Acclaim
The Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2024 places Fuentes and O Pastus within the category of restaurants recognized for delivering a high standard at accessible level.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Annakaren
What is Annakaren Fuentes's current role?
As of 2026, Annakaren Fuentes is Executive Chef.
Where did Annakaren Fuentes train or study?
Annakaren Fuentes trained at Escola de Hotelaria e Turismo do Estoril and Escuela Superior de Hosteleria de Sevilla.
What recognition has Annakaren Fuentes received?
Michelin Bib Gourmand (2024).
