Our story
One hearth, twelve years
Brasa began in 2014 in a former boat shed by the harbour: twenty-four seats, one grill and a cook who refused to install gas. The shed is still here. The grill grew into a six-metre hearth.
The kitchen
Cooking the way it was done before switches
Elena Ortiz grew up cooking over vine cuttings at her grandfather's harvest lunches. After ten years in restaurant kitchens she wanted to cook one way only: over live fire, with what the farms and boats bring, and with nothing hidden.
Every cook at Brasa learns the hearth before they learn the menu. It takes months to read the heat by eye and by hand, and it never stops changing with the wood, the weather and the room.
“Fire is the most honest ingredient we have. It shows you everything you did wrong.”
Elena Ortiz, chef and founder
Since 2014
How the fire grew
No investors and no second site. Just one room that slowly learned what it wanted to be.
2014
The first fire
We open in a former boat shed with twenty-four seats, one charcoal grill and a menu of six dishes.
2016
The ageing room
A cold room behind the kitchen becomes our own dry-ageing room, so we can buy whole animals from two farms.
2019
The hearth
We rebuild the kitchen around a six-metre wood hearth and open the room up to sixty-two seats.
2022
The counter
Ten seats move right up to the fire. The chef's counter quickly becomes the most requested table.
2025
Our own woodyard
We start seasoning our own oak in the yard behind the shed, a full year before any of it burns.
What we hold to
Three things we will not change
The menu changes every day. These do not, however busy the room gets.
[01/04] // Wood
[+]
Oak and vine only
Seasoned wood
We burn oak for steady heat and vine cuttings for a fast, fragrant flame. No gas, no lighter fluid.
[01/04] // Wood
[+]
Oak and vine only
Seasoned wood
We burn oak for steady heat and vine cuttings for a fast, fragrant flame. No gas, no lighter fluid.
[01/04] // Wood
[+]
Oak and vine only
Seasoned wood
We burn oak for steady heat and vine cuttings for a fast, fragrant flame. No gas, no lighter fluid.
