In this restaurant in downtown Rio, volunteers like journalists come to serve every day, including chefs and waiters. The chefs who come here to help are all professional chefs, even famous chefs from Brazil and all over the world. Homeless people who usually live in the streets and starve for a meal enjoy delicious food here and feel respected at the same time.
20 15 An encounter at the Milan World Expo gave birth to this "food restaurant". At the invitation of Italian Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura, David Hertz, a chef from Brazil, cooked with discarded raw materials and distributed the prepared food to the vagrants on the streets of Milan, which moved Hertz very much.
Hertz himself is the initiator of the "Food Power" social assistance project. In 2006, he left the restaurant where he worked and began to teach cooking to poor young people without any tuition. He just wants these young people to have skills and find jobs. Why not combine these two practices? Hertz and Bottura hit it off at once. Therefore, in 20 16, Bottura served as a chef, and the students of the "food power" project helped to cook, thus the homeless restaurant was established.
During the Rio Olympic Games, this restaurant used leftovers from cooking for athletes in the Olympic Village. Now the raw materials for cooking come from local large supermarkets. Every day, vegetables and fruits in the supermarket are thrown away because of their poor appearance, but this does not affect eating. As for fish, meat, etc. , need to be sponsored by sponsors or cooperative restaurants.
At about 1 1 on the morning of the experience, the reporter saw a truck parked at the entrance of the restaurant, and boxes of vegetables and fruits arrived one after another. The staff again classified these foods and discarded the truly inedible foods. While observing the ingredients, the chef discussed the menu with his assistant that night. Because of the particularity of the source of ingredients here, we have to wait for the ingredients to arrive every day before we can determine what to eat for dinner.
The chef of the day was Carla Porto, a student of the third training course of "Food Power". After graduation, she opened a small restaurant, but whenever she has time, she will come to the "gourmet power restaurant" to help.
Volunteer Luciana Benamo was in charge of dessert that night. She lives in Niteroi across the sea from Rio. She needs to get up early to help in the restaurant, but she is glad to think that she can help so many people. "I come to the restaurant two days a week now, and I even worked here for 30 hours last week! I don't feel tired at all, because I am very happy. "
After 3 pm, everyone began to prepare dinner. Washing vegetables, boiling pumpkin soup, cooking noodles and serving dessert ... This restaurant prepares 72 dinners every day. Marianne, the public relations manager, told reporters that some government agencies and non-governmental organizations are responsible for arranging street vagrants to eat here every day, so that there will not be too many people or dissatisfaction.
At 5 pm, volunteers as waiters arrived. Volunteers usually sign up through the restaurant's official website or social media. The restaurant staff will arrange a short training for everyone first, and then volunteers will set the table and pour a glass of mineral water on each table, waiting for the diners to arrive.
At 6 o'clock sharp, the restaurant opened and the tramps couldn't wait to sit down. The exquisite food made them particularly satisfied, even the bread and olives as side dishes were eaten clean. Two of them heard that the reporter was from China, so they asked the reporter to write their names in Chinese on the napkin, and then carefully put away the napkin. When a reporter served food, an old lady actually said "thank you" in Chinese. The reporter asked her where she learned it. She said that an China man once gave her some food and money. She learned "thank you" from this kind person, and she is glad to use it again today.
Although the clothes of these diners are incompatible with the fashionable and elegant design of the restaurant, their behavior is not vulgar. Some people will pile up the plates after eating a dish, so that the waiter can pick them up faster and more conveniently. Hertz said that he hoped that people who came here to eat would feel respected, not given alms. After serving for one night, he found that they actually deserved people's respect.