Speaking Portuguese
FOR DOURO’S CHEF, RUI CORREIA, PIRI PIRI IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Its deep, rich orange color encourages a dip, a splash or a liberal dousing. It is as beautiful as it is delicious, a condiment that is unique to the place that serves it up.
“They will ask for it to go,” says Chef Rui Correia, of his condiment invention — a nod to a mainstay in Portuguese cuisine, but altered to make it his own.
“When I became a chef, one of the first things I did was start to work on my own souped- up piri piri. I wanted it to be more than the heat. I wanted it to be a flavor agent,” he says, as he sits at a table in his Greenwich restaurant Douro. “I use it on my shrimp. I use it on my pasta. I use it on … almost everything. People come in here and say, ‘ You have to try his piri piri,’ so it has become the condiment of the restaurant. It is the most versatile Portuguese flavoring that I have. Nothing cuts across so many boundaries as piri piri.”
For the uninitiated, which includes those who have not grown up in Portugal, appreciated its cuisine or dined in Douro, piri piri is a condiment typically made by infusing bird’s eye chilis and other ingredients into oil. It’s spicy — a taste with which Correia is familiar, having grown up in Porto, Portugal. His version is more of a hot sauce, an emulsified version of the traditional oil.
This transformation is at the heart of his culinary approach. Correia, who moved to the United States when he was 8, has taken the traditional cuisine of his homeland and created savvy and savory dishes for an American palate.
“Being an old- world cuisine, Portuguese can be a little heavy at times, as are some of the more traditional French and Italian dishes,” Correia says. “I bring a fresh, livelier and healthier version of the Portuguese cuisine to the plate.”
Correia has the restaurant business in his blood, so to speak, given his grandparents ran one in Portugal when he was a child. After his family arrived in the United States, the dishes at home continued to be Portuguese fare, but he sampled flavors of different ethnicities in his Yonkers, N. Y., neighborhood when visiting friends’ homes. By the time he was in college, he was working in restaurants, including Palmer’s in Bronxville, N. Y., where a chef was influential in Correia’s career path.
Correia was encouraged to switch to culinary school. “He said, ‘ you have the bug,’ and the rest is history,” Correia says
That was 1990. After studies at New York Restaurant School, Correia moved on to top New York City restaurants such as Gramercy Tavern, Mesa Grill, Gotham Bar & Grill and Danny Meyer’s Union Square Café. In 2009, he opened Douro.
In the years that followed, the cuisine of Portugal has gained in popularity. Not as high- profile, perhaps, as the gastronomic traditions of France or Italy, it is increasingly escaping its borders as more tourists flock to Portugal and more chefs stateside reinvigorate the cuisine’s rustic origins. Correia is one, as is George Mendes, who grew up in Danbury and runs the Michelin- starred restaurant Aldea in New York City, which also opened in 2009.
The hearty, peasant meals of his grandparents’ restaurant are given new life in Douro’s menu. Salted cod keeps its texture under Correia’s watch, but not all the salt. Teamed with vegetables and vegetable- based sauces and condiments, Correia’s cod is lighter than a traditional stew. He sometimes marries personal taste with cultural history. Chickpeas are a staple ingredient, but not in the way Correia delivers them. His homemade hummus appetizer is one of his best- selling dishes.
He may be partial, but Correia believes the Portuguese cuisine is one of the richest, most diverse in the world — having benefited from centuries of trade and travel that brought international flavors to the country’s proverbial door. Part of his mission is to create a menu that brings in diners, but he also has a big picture look at his influence.
“When I got old enough to go off on my own, I felt a calling to represent my cuisine and culture,” he says. “But, I didn’t want to do it the way everybody else has … which is very traditional, typical and hardcore Portuguese. I wanted to see how I could integrate the Portuguese influence and marry it with other nationalities and their cuisines. If I liked meatballs, I thought how can I make them Portuguese; if I like flatbreads, how can I make a Portuguese flatbread? … I sort of try to find ways to represent the Portuguese influence, whether it is a spice, a sauce, a technique or a pairing.”
Correia is confident this centuries- old cuisine is picking up converts, so much so that he is planning to open a second restaurant on Greenwich Avenue before year’s end. He also is among the chefs participating in the Greenwich Wine and Food Festival Sept. 21- 22. And, he has been invited to offer gourmet hors d’oeuvres in October for a fund raiser for the Greenwich Arts Council.
“I could get more detailed and technical, but at the end of the day, Portuguese cuisine is Mediterranean fare,” he says. “It’s the olive oils, the tomatoes, the garlic, the lemon, the parsley, the fish. It’s just a culinary tradition that is now being discovered.”