Alex Atala earned his reputation as one of Latin America’s most influential chefs through his unique work with small producers in Brazil, researching, often rescuing from extinction, and then featuring in his restaurant indigenous Brazilian ingredients with a heavy focus on plant-based products like manioc, herbs, and roots. A fixture on World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, he also established the ATA Institute, which focuses on promoting Brazilian food diversity in social and environmental ways.

Alex Atala, chef and owner of D.O.M. Restaurant, is recognized by an innovative cuisine, thanks to the flavor variety of the Brazilian ingredients. In 1999, D.O.M. Restaurante was born and ever since the D.O.M. Group grew into an empire composed by Dalva e Dito (Brazilian affective cuisine), Açougue Central (meat specialized restaurant), 7 Gastronomia (catering and events) and Bio – Healthy Eating, besides D.O.M. itself. Currently, D.O.M. has the 16th place on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and Chef Alex has 3 Michelin Stars (two for D.O.M. and one for Dalva e Dito). Outside of the kitchen, ATÁ Institute is Chef Atala’s main project, focused on works with small producers, indigenous communities and around strengthening the food chain as a whole.

Flower Ceviche with Orange Blossom Vinaigrette

30 minutes cook/prep

Vinaigrette
1 “dedo de moça” pepper
150 ml lemon juice
100 g jataí honey or honey from gentle bee
25 ml orange blossom water

Algae Dust
20 g dehydrated codium algae
10 g dehydrated nori algae
10 g dehydrated wakame algae

Ceviche
20 g chives
80 g sorted edible flower petals (for example: pansy, begonia, marigold, and chrysanthemum)
20 g julienne (really thin) sliced red onion
Chopped ice

Flower Ceviche with Orange Blossom Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette
Chop the pepper in “brunoise”, and mix it along with the other vinaigrette ingredients. Save the vinaigrette.: Algae dust
Run the algae through a mixer or a Thermomix until it's dusted. Sieve it and save it until it’s time to use it.: Ceviche
Chop off the ends of the chives in 3 centimeter pieces, and mix it with the sorted petals. In a bowl, add the red onion. Season it with three spoons of vinaigrette.: ASSEMBLE
Place the ceviche in the dish in which will be served, and sprinkle the algae dust over it. Finalize it by spreading a few little chopped ice stones over the ceviche.

His approach
One of my main goals was always to be an ambassador to Brazilian cuisine worldwide. No differently than the other cuisines around the globe, Brazilian has its bases on the vegetable kingdom, therefore, the importance of these ingredients has always been a part of my speech anywhere I went. It was these exact ingredients that gave us at D.O.M. one very bold and innovative idea: the Vegetable Kingdom tasting menu, a totally vegetable based menu, a new way to challenge our customers to get in touch with more of Brazilian biodiversity, which is so huge and rich but unfortunately not known completely. “Biodiversity when simply spoken has no value, but, when tasted, gains value”, this phrase, said by my friend, Valdely Kinnup, is something I’ll take for the rest of my life both professionally and personally.: What are your best tips to make vegetables enticing?
Since 2009, when I created a totally vegetable based menu, the main goal was to make people lose their prejudice. Vegetables can definitely have the leading role in a full menu, because they offer endless possibilities. The idea of the menu, created as a tribute to my great friend, Marcia de Luca, was to highlight depreciated ingredients, rescuing their flavors and searching for new shapes, textures, colors and aromas. Gastronomy would be much less complex and would lose great part of its pleasure if it wasn’t for the vegetable kingdom. It is the base to all the cuisines. Omnipresent in all ethnicities. Some big classics are vegetarian. Just think from spaghetti to tomato sauce, onion soup and ramen. It is definitely possible to make a dinner in which people won’t miss eating meat. Here at D.O.M., we use from the simplest and primitive resources until the most complex ones to compose this menu. Sea flavors can be represented by sea plants. Earth by mushrooms and some legumes.: What three plant-based foods could you not be without in your kitchen?
In a Brazil, the country that has the biggest biodiversity in the world, it becomes quite difficult to choose just a few ingredients to speak of. However, we can highlight maybe jambu, manioc, pupunha (a type of palm heart taken fresh straight from the palm tree) and priprioca.