The Conversation Sérgio Cambas: Entrepreneurship in Catering

Martiform spoke with Sérgio Cambas, responsible for Cervejarias Brasão, for O Paparico and, soon, for Granu.

A free creator who stirs the kitchen and Portuguese culinary concepts, rescuing them for the present. Constantly evolving to provide consumption experiences in the Porto Restaurant area.

We questioned this visionary, guided by emotion and creativity with an extraordinary business vision. And we understood his efficient, creative thinking focused on good service, quality, and environment, but above all on his teams and, of course, the customer.

Martiform (M): Tell us a little about what you believe has influenced your profile as a businessman today.

Sérgio Cambas (SC): The restaurant business is a very specific, very challenging area.

I believe I ended up becoming a restaurant businessman because I always had a great love for the restaurant business, hospitality, and the art of serving.

I don't seek to be a businessman through the restaurant business, but it was the restaurant business that turned me into a businessman.

M: Looking back, we see a family with a great history in the restaurant business. When and how did the entrepreneurial spirit that made you move forward with your first place (O Paparico) in the restaurant market arise?

SC: My root is indeed very closely connected to the restaurant business, a family very linked to agriculture and that same area, the agriculture area, is one where everyone defines their own business: you produce and sell.

On one hand, you have responsibility and on the other, autonomy to design your own path.

What defined me as an entrepreneur or someone who defines their own path was the fact that I "drank" a bit from that root.

Since always and even before my parents entered the restaurant business, I heard a principle that influenced me irreversibly: "you have to define your own path."

I never saw examples of proximity where, to be someone or to go work for a big company, we had to have a degree.

The principle around me was always autonomy and freedom. Freedom to do what you think is right for your business, for your restaurant, for your field of planting, assuming the responsibilities that come with that decision.

Therefore, I was never raised to think otherwise, but rather to think within my own ideas, assuming all the good and all the responsibility that comes with it.

More than being a businessman, I am a person who likes to think for myself and define my own path.

M: Those who know you know that you have a great vein of creativity and that you like to look at all your projects as something "Work in Progress." Where do you think your Group could be in 10 years?

SC: Those who have already visited us or had meetings in my offices know what the first phrase you find at the door is: "welcome to the place where everything is yet to be done!" and this is a principle of restlessness and at the same time self-motivation for my team, to never think that we are at a static or excellent level. Especially because, more so in our business, everything changes very quickly, and that change refers to a word that is fundamental to me: adaptation.

Within a framework of adaptation, I have taken care to seek timelessness at the core of my group of restaurants. That is, to seek concepts, expressions, principles, and service values that are solid.

And being solid does not necessarily mean not taking risks, but above all, it means trying to create restoration works that reach the largest possible audience, that are easily interpretable, easily understandable, and that always refer us to that great dimension which is: "this concept was born today, but it seems like it has always been here."

And that timelessness, in my way of seeing things and seeing them very currently, is to ensure that the basis of everything that comes next is a base that is not necessarily exposed to time.

We have many things in the pipeline, many interesting Brands, some still following what is one of the missions I have for this decade as a businessman: to update those concepts that in my perspective are more obsolete, or that did not know how to adapt in various details, that were not timeless.

They were very good at that time, hence they were born and have survived until now, but at a certain point they became radically outdated, they became static.

Just, for example, look at the impact that the Brasão Breweries had in the city of Porto.

 

Martiform Personalized Apron – Brasão Restaurant

 

In a world of classics, there was indeed room for another classic that knew how to speak in a current way, that knew how to reach people, without necessarily having to present a trend logic, but rather a logic of “modernization,” with the necessary softness to continue reaching all generations and above all, to continue making all those generations happy who end up being regular consumers and Clients of the Brasão Brand itself.

More than looking for a trend, I am looking for diversity within what consumption experiences are, because the day has 24 hours and within those 24 hours we can do many things.

There are moments of consumption that are radically different and in different segments, both in price and concept, and my goal in the next 10 years is to diversify all that offer so we can cover the 24 hours of the day as much as possible.

Therefore, in the next 10 years, I see us maintaining this stamp, this very strong identity.

M: In the journey you have made so far, what role have mistakes and failures played until you found success with O Paparico and Cervejarias Brasão?

SC: When we take certain steps to create certain concepts, first of all, we have to know what we are getting into and prepare ourselves before taking “that leap.”

When a person starts a certain business, they must master that business, and only then does the mistake have value. If not, it means the mistake is really naivety, and I do not like to consider that what is done is done out of naivety, but rather because you are opening new paths and often experimenting.

In my view, people do not learn only from mistakes. Mistakes are very useful for us to improve the experience we give to the Customer and to our own employees.

But above all, I do not wait for the mistake to happen to start envisioning an opportunity for improvement.

Regardless of working and humbly considering the mistake, we must see what we do well as an immediate opportunity to rethink something different and evolve.

Most of the time we work on the needs expressed by those who visit us, but I believe that long-term success has to do with the group looking at even the unexpressed needs. In other words, we have to be there before the mistake happens!

M: What do you consider to be the biggest challenge the restaurant industry is facing right now?

SC: The restaurant industry has experienced in recent years what I call professionalization.

Fortunately, speaking about the last 15 years, there has been a great transformation, and this transformation brought with it the DNA of an art that has always lived with a great spirit of sacrifice, as it is an area that demands a lot intellectually and physically from all involved.

It is a field accustomed to suffering, to having to overcome, and the great challenge of restoration in the near future is to transform it.

To transform the first level of restoration, where amateur people who have never worked in the field are located.

The second transformation is general professionalization, where a large structure is introduced associated with new professionals and where creativity enters in a much broader and more democratic way.

Finally, the third step, and the great challenge we have, is to make this field, first of all, extremely valued, not only by those who work in it but also by the consumers themselves, and through this process of appreciation, which starts with the Chef but has not yet extended to all professionals in the field, we can attract and make this career extremely interesting, valued, and recognized.

Therefore, the great challenge in the coming years will be to bring more people from other areas or who do not yet have a defined area into restoration, allowing them to find here a place of fulfillment and achievement.

M: What advice do you give to those who might become interested in the field of restoration?

SC: The only advice I give is: if we seek to be valued, recognized, and appreciated, then we must value, know, and appreciate ourselves, mainly through the pursuit of knowledge.

The more we know about something, the more exciting that subject becomes.

M: In your field of activity, which has evolved at a dizzying pace, is there time for regrets?

SC: There are no regrets for a creative person!

A person who lives from creation always looks at everything as a work, regardless of its appearance. Therefore, I want to continuously improve the work with no time for regrets. There is time, however, to keep adding value to anything that is done.

M: You just mentioned adding value, and that is the perfect lead-in to talk about the new brand coming up, Granu. Would you like to tell us a bit about it?

SC: Granu will be born in Praça Velasquez in Porto, and what can be expected, above all, is a bit of the matrix of what I have been saying since the beginning of this interview.

There are concepts that get lost over time, and nowadays when I go to a local café, I find exactly the same scenario, the same type of product.

Nowadays, a bakery's root business is selling bread, but this bread is extremely inspiring to be approached at various times of the day.

Therefore, what we can expect from Granu is a concept anchored in very high-quality sourdough bread, quality cereals, professionals who truly master and have sought to deepen, study, and test many of the ancestral techniques that have been lost over time and that today end up being a return to the past.

A healthy bread to accompany us with a galão or an omelet. A bread that makes a fantastic mixed toast, that accompanies a charcuterie board, that is the base of a ham sandwich or a sandwich with fresh ingredients.

Thus, always revolving around bread, we can make various meals throughout the day, but never losing sight that above all, this bread nourishes. It is a bread of exceptional quality and absolutely unique, while also being tasty.

M: Recently, O Paparico reopened, where we can notice not only a change in the gastronomic experience but also in the uniforms. What are the key details and how did the inspiration for this creation come about?

SC: Each restaurant concept has and should have a very distinct identity, because without a defined concept, people never really know what to expect or what they will find, so restaurant concepts have to be very striking.

The concept of O Paparico, from the inside out or the way we feel it, is almost a place where you can find Portuguese cuisine of excellence that, perhaps, is no longer found with such diversity or with such extensive research work.

When we enter a restaurant like O Paparico – which balances elegance with rusticity very well, two styles that do not always coexist simultaneously – we expect to have a total experience.

In other words, we want to forget everything that is happening and be completely immersed in the experience. Therefore, one of the details we worked on in this rentrée was indeed that the uniform also express, in a very striking way, that experience.

Finding someone who creates something from scratch is not easy, and we found in you the same values of restlessness, creativity, and the desire to do something "outside the box."

The new uniforms of O Paparico express, in a discreet and elegant matrix, a bit of what traditional Portuguese attire is from North to South.

We sought to unify in unique, custom-made pieces a concept that had details, for example, from the traditional Minho costume, details associated with what is, in my opinion, one of the most elegant and refined costumes: that of the Portuguese cavalry, and finally to also draw those details from the uniforms of the forcados.

Therefore, there are several elements that express in the uniforms that journey which is Portugal when it comes to traditional costumes.

But it was a great challenge to create something that, by chance, could create a concept that simultaneously fit with the pillars of elegance and rusticity that O Paparico has.

 

It was extraordinary! And most importantly, when the Team wears the uniform, they feel special and like they are defending an important cause, which at its core is the cause that drives O Paparico.

M: And at Brasão Breweries? Do you want to talk a little about the details and how the idea of creating the uniform came about?

SC: As I said earlier, each space must have a very distinct identity.

Brasão Breweries are concepts with very large crowds, so one of the focuses for the creation of the uniforms was undoubtedly comfort.

Therefore, the uniform had to be practical and the employee had to feel beautiful and comfortable.

Here, we built everything from the sneaker to the pin that expresses the Brand itself.

As a consumer, I think it is very important to have an invisible service, that is, I like a service that has a useful presence: a service that is there when I need it or anticipating what I need, but without ever feeling the very marked presence of the employee. And the creations of the Brasão Brand uniforms had that principle.

M: Finally, and lifting the "veil" a little, there are already uniforms designed for Granu, aren't there?

SC: Yes, Granu currently has a project underway that is quite advanced. We are almost at the completion phase of what the uniforms are.

Here, and somewhat involving the architectural concept, the concept of the products, of the cereal, the raw, light, fresh hues, we seek a "more relaxed wave."

We look for sizes slightly above the so-called normal, so that the service can have fluidity, almost giving the idea of "wheat swaying in a field." We try to work with light fabrics, more natural, raw fabrics, thus expressing the clarity given to us, for example, by flour.

One of the materials we will use, for example, is linen. We chose this material once again because it reminds us of the ears, the cereals, ...

Therefore, everything we think will express both in texture and in fluidity that energy, that lightness of "a wheat field at dusk, at the end of August before the harvest"!

Sérgio Cambas