Meet Tássia Magalhães, chef at Nelita restaurant – 03/07/2024 – Restaurants

Tássia Magalhães, 34, internationally recognized chef at Nelita, 21st best restaurant in Latin America according to the 50 Best award, didn’t even think about doing gastronomy. She really wanted to study law.

Her taste for cooking, however, took shape when the São Paulo native from Guaratinguetá, a city 180 km from São Paulo, was a teenager. At the age of 15, one of her hobbies was reproducing the recipes she saw on the presenter Palmirinha’s program (1931-2023). “I was fascinated,” she says.

When he took the entrance exam, he enrolled in a law school. “I really liked cooking, but I didn’t see it as a profession.” It was her father, Ubirajara, who gave her the push to change careers. “He was one of my biggest supporters and gave me books to understand gastronomy.”

Magalhães graduated as a cook at Senac in Campos do Jordão, in 2009. Afterwards, she went to São Paulo to do internships.

His first job was at Pomodori, an Italian restaurant run at the time by chef Jefferson Rueda, from A Casa do Porco. She started as an intern and left as the owner of the business, where she worked for almost ten years.

In the meantime, in 2010, he lived for a year in Denmark and worked in restaurants such as Geranium, with three Michelin stars. He also had a brief stint in the kitchen at Noma, voted that year as the best restaurant in the world by 50 Best.

At Pomodori, Magalhães fell in love with Italian cuisine, which would be the basis of his work. She started out as a pastry chef, something she always enjoyed, but kept an eye on the action in the hot kitchen. At the age of 23, she took over the restaurant, until 2018, a year that she describes as very difficult in her life. “My father had died and I didn’t really know what I was going to do,” she says.

He decided to invest in his own projects, such as Riso.e.ria, specializing in rice, a common recipe in his family. The restaurant operated in Itaim Bibi and will be reopened by the chef. From the taste for pasta came Uno Masseria, which operated via delivery in the same kitchen.

A successful chocolate cake gave rise to Mag Market, a café where the chef shows her confectionery side, opened a year ago in Itaim Bibi, and which will soon renew its dessert menu.

His main project to date is Nelita. The house, opened in May 2021 in Pinheiros, was awarded an award. Less than a year old, it entered the 50 Best in Latin America at 39th. In the last edition, it rose 18 positions. At the award ceremony in Rio, the chef was very emotional.

“I can’t pretend to be normal. I always get nervous. It’s recognition of our work, that people are really enjoying it.”

It presents a more delicate and original Italian cuisine, without classic pastas. There are à la carte dishes and a tasting menu for R$440, served for just ten people at dinner. The name of the house is a tribute to his mother, Vani Helena.

After working in kitchens made up mostly of men, the chef decided to set up a team with only women. In the salon, however, there are men who work in customer service. “There are still difficulties for women in the kitchen, but we are increasingly gaining this space,” she says.

Last year, Magalhães was chosen by the French La Liste award as one of the new talents in gastronomy. With the recognition, invitations to cook in restaurants in Brazil and in countries like Argentina, Mexico and the Dominican Republic poured in.

Seu Nelita will celebrate three years with a new tasting menu in May. In it, she will tell her story in recipes. Which, in a change of direction, went from the country girl who barely traveled to one of the chefs with the most busy schedule.

Mag Market
R. Dr. Renato Paes de Barros, 433, Itaim Bibi, western region, @magmarket_

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Nelita
R. Ferreira de Araújo, 330, Pinheiros, west region, @nelitarestaurant