Rafa Costa

The Path

Training at the Culinary Institute of America gave Rafa Costa a technical base to work from, but the point of the education shows up later, in the discipline of Lasai. Since 2014, Costa has been chef at the restaurant, building its identity in measured steps rather than broad gestures. The emphasis is on control, consistency, and the ability to let good ingredients carry the plate without overworking them.

The Work Today

At the restaurant he owns, Costa keeps the method plain and the goal direct. “We cook in a really simple way. Above all, I want the food to be good. So we just cook good food with really good ingredients.” That is the operating logic of the kitchen: simplicity as a working standard, not an aesthetic shortcut. At Lasai, the garden and the organic street markets here in Rio are part of the restaurant’s daily rhythm, because they shape what gets cooked and how far it needs to be taken.

In Their Words “We don’t really have a style. We don’t do avant-garde. We don’t do Brazilian food. We cook things that we like to cook – things that I have in my garden, things that we get at the organic street markets here in Rio.” “We cook in a really simple way. Above all, I want the food to be good. So we just cook good food with really good ingredients.”

Acclaim

Rafa Costa has received MICHELIN Guide — MICHELIN Star (2015). MICHELIN Star recognition sits cleanly alongside Costa’s approach. It speaks to a kitchen built on clarity rather than noise, where the standard is ingredient quality, restraint, and the discipline to let those elements do the work. In Lasai, the award aligns with the method already on the line: precise, controlled, and unsentimental about excess.