Gabriella Cottali Devetak

Coming Up

Gabriella Cottali Devetak divides her work between Lokanda Devetak and Machado: chef at the former, Executive Chef at the latter. The arrangement places one kitchen inside a family line and the other inside a contemporary restaurant format, and her cooking reads from both. In Gabriella Cottali Devetak’s hands, those two addresses hold two registers at once — one shaped by memory and inheritance, the other by precision and present-tense service.

Where They Are Now

At Machado in Nogueira, Portugal, Gabriella Cottali Devetak serves as Executive Chef. The role asks for control over rhythm, balance, and the sequencing of a menu, and her work there is described in those terms: composed, deliberate, and built to hold after the meal is over. That kind of kitchen leadership depends on restraint as much as expression, and it is there that her current voice is most clearly fixed.

Signature

The signature dishes tied to Gabriella Cottali Devetak map a kitchen that works between inherited flavors and exact execution. Lafões-style roast veal points to a format built on richness and scale; coniglio in umido passato al forno sits in the tradition of slow, oven-finished braising; and Fusi, salsiccia e formaggio Jamar shows an attention to texture and pairing, with each component doing clear work on the plate. Read together, the dishes show a cook using familiar forms without flattening them, keeping the structure intact while refining the finish.

In Their Words “My paternal grandmother used to make me the rabbit stew baked in the oven to spoil me and make me happy when I went to visit her as a child.” That dish is a lesson in how home cooking can carry technique and care in the same gesture. In Gabriella Cottali Devetak’s telling, the oven-baked stew is not just remembered; it is held up as an early example of food used to mark affection, and of a flavor memory that stays useful long after childhood. The family record is plain, and that plainness matters. Gabriella Cottali Devetak gives the origins directly, and in doing so lays out a map of belonging that helps explain the weight of place in her cooking: names, towns, and a lineage that remains legible through the food.