Rafael Costa

The Recognition At Lasai, the produce grown for the kitchen is not a garnish to the menu; it is the framework. The discipline sits in careful sourcing, restraint, and a clear purpose on the plate, so the ingredient stays legible rather than buried under excess. That is what gives the restaurant its identity: a menu shaped by what can be grown close to the stove, and by the decisions made long before service begins. The work starts in the soil, moves through the harvest, and arrives at the pass with little interest in unnecessary flourish.

The Work

Behind It Costa works with a directness that leaves room for the produce to lead. Vegetable-led dishes set the direction, while homegrown produce determines not only what can be served, but how the menu changes from one service to the next. That requires a kitchen to stay responsive to what comes in from its own production, and to treat those shifts as part of the method rather than a disruption. At Lasai, restraint is not an aesthetic afterthought; it is the operating principle, and the craft lies in knowing how to give each ingredient enough structure to register clearly.

The Road The foundations were set at The Culinary Institute of America, before Mugaritz in 2007 expanded the frame. That period added range without pulling him away from the logic that would later define his own kitchen: a focus on what happens when food is built from the land around it. By the time Costa opened Lasai in Rio de Janeiro in 2014, that thinking had become the core of the restaurant. In Botafogo, within the gourmet enclave where Lasai took shape, the project found a fixed address for a way of cooking that starts with produce and keeps the plate disciplined.