Gastrónomo is a unique experience in São Miguel island – Azores.

We arrive in the parish of São Pedro, in Ponta Delgada, at 2pm. The place we were scheduled to meet smells good like good food always does. Before entering the “O Gastrónomo” restaurant, we had to walk a good few meters to find the place where we were greeted by Gonçalo Reis, 26.

We know this is a family business started by Gonçalo’s father and mother. He told Diário da Lagoa (DL) that when he was still at Antero de Quental High School, he was already helping out in the restaurant. At the time, he tried to “advance his studies,” but “it wasn’t what he wanted.”

With the Covid-19 pandemic, everything changed. Since then, he “hasn’t wanted to leave” because he realized that it’s in the daily struggle in the restaurant business that he feels at home.

Gonçalo explains that his father, a banker then, and his mother, a socio-cultural animator, dreamed of creating the “The Gastronome.” “It was a kind of plan B to generate extra income, but it went so well that it became plan A,” he explains, not hiding his pride in the project his parents started.

“My mother already had a business in the same place. I grew up in this environment of coming home late and sleeping here without realizing it. I got used to it. This is normal for me, but if you want to do this for a living, you have to like it; otherwise, forget it,” says the young man in charge of this growing business.

As he approaches some of his acquaintances, he tells us that before they serve the customers, they always have to prepare the restaurant and the kitchen and that when they close, they have to clean everything for the next day. “We find ourselves, and our day is full; we always get home late,” he adds.

He explains to DL (Diário da Lagoa) that they have had a regular and local customer base since the beginning. These customers come to the restaurant for the typical dish of the house, which is made with a recipe that was passed down to his mother by her grandmother: “the stuffed mackerel.” This is a small fish that, in Portuguese, is known as “chicarros.”

Although the restaurant’s best-known dish is chicharro, Gonçalo says that “more and more” they have expanded the menu available. “We’re very well known for our fish, but we also have great meat, our kebabs, and our steaks,” he explains. But when it comes to the sea, he says they focus on “fresh fish from the Azores” and argues: “It’s one of the best raw materials we have”.

“Changes happen over time, and we try to adapt. It’s been going well,” he says with a twinkle in his eye as if he’s done his duty. But he doesn’t forget that “the pandemic was the worst time” he’s lived through and guarantees that “it was a time of great uncertainty.”

“The only thing we can control is doing our best,” he emphasizes while saying that “people’s feedback, the online reviews,” are equally important. “We have a good rating on Tripadvisor,” he says.

“Tourism is essential in every restaurant,” he says, highlighting the importance of “Tripadvisor, Google, everything social media” as something fundamental in this day and age.

In the restaurant, you can hear several languages, notice the presence of tourists, and Portuguese and Spanish stand out. Suddenly, one: “This is wonderful,” says tourists from continental Portugal tasting the stuffed mackerel between conversations with customers who praise the friendliness. “You have to like it to work here,” Sónia Candeias replies to the customers until she hears: “The service is five stars. I’d already read about Sónia. She’s fantastic.”

We decided to approach the customers. Alexandra Santos tells us that they came from Vila Franca de Xira, “20 kilometers from Lisbon”, specifically. She tells us she found “O Gastrónomo” because an acquaintance recommended it. As for the dish they chose, she says: “We had stuffed chicharros, and it’s delicious.”

Sitting at the table again, now with Sónia Candeias, 46, who owns the restaurant and is Gonçalo’s mother, confesses: “It’s not an easy business. To deal with the public, you have to love it because people are increasingly demanding, and if you don’t like what you’re doing, it becomes a sacrifice, and when it becomes a sacrifice, your face is no longer the same,” she explains.

We then asked her what it’s like to work with someone she’s seen grow up and take on the responsibility of running the restaurant, her son. The owner of the establishment falls silent and doesn’t hide the tears that immediately begin to stream down her face. “Oh… change the subject,” she says, covering her face. I give her a few minutes to recover. Sónia Candeias sighs, gathers her courage, and begins by saying with conviction that “he’s an excellent kid, a good professional, he’s already a professional”, she says between sobs.

“We’re a family here.”

She reveals how proud she is of her son while telling us that she also has a 17-year-old daughter who sometimes helps out in the restaurant but that she “wants to go into another line of work.” She says her son is her “right-hand man” in the restaurant.

As for the secret of the stuffed chicharro, she says that “it’s a recipe from my grandmother Zélia Rodrigues.”

“She was a very hard-working woman, and when we opened the restaurant, she said to me: “Sónia, steaks, and meats are found in many restaurants; you have to do something different and something that really appeals to the clientele that I used to do in your grandfather’s tavern,” and I asked her what it was and she said: “stuffed chicharros“.

Sónia says it’s a recipe that: “takes a lot of work to make, but for those who like it well done. It’s a small chicharro, you remove the middle bone and then it’s made with bread stuffing, the rest is a secret”.

We decided to ask to go into the kitchen, where we met chef Luís Pimentel, 36, who promptly said that the restaurant “is my home” and that he has been working there “since it opened.”

Finally, before we say goodbye, we exchange a few words with Zélia Melo, 45, a kitchen assistant who tells us: “I help out in the dining room” while saying she enjoys working in the restaurant. “I like it. Mrs. Sónia says you have to like it; everyone says the same, but I like this job, and it’s the only one I have. I’ve always been in this area since I was 22. Work somewhere else? I don’t want to. We’re a family here.

We left with the promise of returning, as customers, to a place committed to serving its guests with friendliness.

in Diário da Lagoa, director Clife Botelho.

NOVIDADES–editor’s note: I had the good fortune of dining here with a dear friend. I was a most magnificent meal.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno.