The Chef
The Chef, João Oliveira
João Oliveira was born in Campo, Valongo (northern Portugal), and at just 13 years old, he was already helping his mother cook meals, mainly because of the trips they made to his grandparents’ house. “I’d put a pan on the stove, a piece of meat, a handful of rice,” she recalls, describing her first interactions with the kitchen and nature. He started out wanting to be a vet, possibly because of the animals the family raised: sheep, pigs and chickens. There were no mobile phones or video games. His days off were spent hunting birds, picking figs, grapes and quinces, buying goats and sausages from producers and, throughout the year, fishing for carp with his father on trips to Trás-os-Montes (northern Portugal). At just 15, João enrolled at the Infante D. Henrique Professional School in Porto. The days were filled with train journeys between Valongo and Porto, internships in the evenings and working in restaurants at the weekend, as well as a refereeing course.
His career began at the Largo do Paço restaurant in the Casa da Calçada (Amarante, Portugal), where he left and returned after an adventure in Régua, in the Douro In. It was when Ricardo Costa joined the restaurant in Amarante that João Oliveira cemented his career. Before long, he was the right-hand man of the chef who led the famous Casa da Calçada between 2006 and 2010. The opening of The Yeatman was a boost for Ricardo Costa but also for João Oliveira, who chose to follow the chef to Vila Nova de Gaia. They spent four years at The Yeatman, where they won a star in their first year.
CHEF JOÃO OLIVEIRAIn 2014, he wanted to do new, exciting things. The offers were adding up, especially after a seasonal experience at the two-star Vila Joya in the Algarve. It was Gonçalo Narciso dos Santos, ge-
neral manager at the BELA VISTA Hotel & Spa, who contacted João with the idea of creating a new path for VISTA, which had been open since 2011. In 2015, João Oliveira moved to Portimão and was responsible for setting up a project from scratch and hiring entirely new kitchen and service staff. An innovative concept was needed.
The initial plan was to build a solid venue. Research the best products, develop supplier relationships, and work on consistency. VISTA started with a tasting menu, a daily menu, à la carte requests and classic dishes such as Lobster and Scallop Rice. A year later, local fish began to gain more prominence, the tasting became Menu Viagem, and the Mar Adentro event took place, placing João as an ocean ambassador. That same year, VISTA gained ground as a gastronomic destination, and the more classic dishes can leave the menu and make room for the development of the next step: sustainability and identity. There are only two menus, Viagem and Mar e Sustentabilidade. João now has his own voice, a unique language, and can risk putting non gratae species on the menu, such as fish discarded in trawler fisheries. His dedication and resilience paid off at the end of 2017, and VISTA won its first Michelin star. The chef was only 30 years old.
In 2018, João Oliveira was awarded Man of the Year Gourmet by GQ and, a year later, the prestigious Chef de L’Avenir by the International Academy of Gastronomy. VISTA is now his home, where he happily welcomes those who want to immerse themselves in his work and learn more about the flavours of the Algarve, with the sea as a witness.
