Rita Neto

The Place The address that defines Neto’s cooking is Xtoria in Setubal, a venue tied to both her current role and an earlier stage of her kitchen leadership. Her career history there includes a head-chef post from 2017 to 2019; she now leads the kitchen as Executive Chef. That continuity matters on the plate because the work is not presented as a break from place. The cooking draws on traditional Portuguese ingredients and fresh seasonal regional products, then opens those materials to international influences. Setubal is named not as a backdrop but as the location of the kitchen where this method is being worked through. Rather than flattening Portuguese ingredients into a single idea of tradition, the cooking at the restaurant is contemporary fine dining with range built into it. Neto’s own way of describing the experience keeps the table moving: "It is a kind of gastronomic journey we can take."

The Method The method begins with season and region. Fresh seasonal regional products are emphasized, which gives the menu a practical discipline: ingredients arrive with timing, and the kitchen has to respond to what is current rather than force a fixed vocabulary onto every plate. Within that structure, Portuguese ingredients are not treated as closed material. They are fused with international influences, a phrase that points to a style built from contact rather than isolation. The result is contemporary fine dining shaped by local products, traditional references, and techniques or ideas that reach beyond one culinary border. Neto’s role as executive chef gives that approach a single point of direction. Her earlier period as head chef from 2017 to 2019 places the same kitchen in a longer arc, from a named leadership role into the current executive-chef position.

The Range Two dishes give the work its clearest outline. Trilogia de Ostras is a set of oyster preparations featured at the Setubal venue, a signature work that makes seafood the basis for variation rather than repetition. The format suggests three readings of one ingredient, with the oyster acting as the common thread. Her specialty, Taco de tapa quadril, widens that range. Named alongside the oyster trilogy, it shows a kitchen comfortable moving between regional product, international influence, and a dish language that does not sit in one narrow category. Together, those works make a concise map of Neto’s cooking: contemporary fine dining, grounded in Portuguese ingredients and fresh seasonal regional products, with enough outward motion to bring other influences into the room.

In Their Words “I like being able to meet different people every day, and changing location also gives me new energy for my creativity.” “It is a kind of gastronomic journey we can take.”