Walkyria Fagundes

Walkyria Fagundes is a chef and co-founder whose career is built on kitchen discipline, pace, plating, service, and precision. She works as chef at AUDACE in Tokyo, Japan, and as co-founder of AE! Café & Cozinha in São Paulo. Her path reflects a balance between execution and ownership, with each role demanding a different kind of kitchen system and responsibility. Her training at University Anhembi Morumbi, the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners, and Le Cordon Bleu forms the base of her career.

These schools point to structured instruction and international reference points, giving her a method grounded in technique rather than gesture. From there, her early professional experience moved through hotel and restaurant environments where consistency mattered as much as speed. One of the first settings to shape her working rhythm was the hotel at Westin Palace in Madrid. The demands of that operation are reflected in the steadiness that continues through her later roles.

She also worked at Nerua, Quique Dacosta, Épice, and Gelato Boutique, each adding to a career formed in kitchens known for exacting standards. Across these experiences, the pattern remains consistent: precision under pressure, composure in service, and the ability to absorb method from one kitchen before moving to the next. Since 2019, she has been co-founder of AE! Café & Cozinha, while also working as chef at AUDACE.

That move from working within other kitchens to helping lead her own project gives her career a second register, one that combines technical range with authorship over how that range is used. The São Paulo project also carries a clear cultural identity. When it opened, she described the idea as something Brazilian and connected it to a Tupi-Guarani name, making naming part of the project’s identity as well as its service.

At AUDACE in Tokyo, she extends the same discipline into a different city and operating context. Her work continues to show the same focus on technique, control, and steadiness across different kitchens and responsibilities. Among her signature dishes is vitello tonnato. What stands out in her record is the sequence of schools, a Madrid hotel, and a series of kitchens that all required quick adaptation and exact standards. Her own view of pressure is direct, and it matches a career defined by movement through institutions and cities while keeping technique at the center.