Little did chef Freddie Dias know when he brought his mom's peri- peri chicken to a braai with boss Luke Dale Roberts that a chefified version of it would end up on the menu at famed Cape Town restaurant, The Pot Luck Club.
Born and raised in Johannesburg, Dias is head chef at The Pot Luck Club, and a first-generation South African of deeply instilled Portuguese heritage. "My friends think of me as the poster child for the Portuguese people."
At 33, he's been cooking in high-profile restaurants for nearly half his life, in SA and Europe.
Dias's parents grew up in Mozambique, and all four of his grandparents were Portuguese. In his own childhood, food was important, simple and usually Portuguese.
Cooking was in the genes, although Dias is the first in the family to choose it as a career purely for the love of cooking and feeding others; in the large families of his grandparents' generation, food was one of the most accessible ways to make a living.
His maternal grandfather trained as a pastry chef and apprenticed in Lisbon before starting the Riviera, a Portuguese bakery in Beira, Mozambique. His paternal grandparents ran a family-style restaurant in Beira (which also catered for the local prison). Even his mother, who qualified as a medical technician, briefly ran a restaurant/takeaway called Peri-Peri Chicken in Bez Valley, Johannesburg.
While many of Dias's childhood friends were Portuguese, few connected with their culture like he did, even though by then, all his grandparents were back in Portugal. "Many kids of my generation felt that as long as they knew about espetadas and football, they were Portuguese enough." Dias, on the other hand, grew up bilingual; his parents spoke Portuguese to each other.
During his second semester at Prue Leith Academy (then Prue Leith College of Food and Wine) in Gauteng, he had the chance to directly connect with his Portuguese culture and family. For two months, he lived with his uncle while apprenticing at Lisbon bakery Pastelaria Califa, where he learned how to make pasteis de natas, croissants and bola de Berlim (custard-filled doughnuts).
After graduation, Dias worked at Johannesburg's revered fine- dining restaurant Auberge Michel with chef Frederic Leloup. Eventually owner Michel Morand helped him get a job at Auberge des Fontaines d'Aragon, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in the South of France, which "was a dream come true".
In 2010, the World Cup drew him back to SA: he cooked at the Fairway Hotel in Randpark Ridge, which hosted the Brazilian team - his Portuguese put to good use. Then it was on to the UK and Viajante, a one-Michelin-star restaurant with a Portuguese chef cooking Portuguese-inspired food. For Dias, this job ticked every box - until the restaurant closed.
Since 2014, he has worked at the Pot Luck Club.
As for the aforementioned peri-peri chicken, it's a great story of the evolution of a restaurant dish. Dias explains: "One day, I was invited to a bring-and-braai with Luke and a group of fellow chefs. It was seriously intimidating and ended up bringing peri-peri chicken; I always have a jar of my mom's peri-peri at home. I made the chicken exactly the way my mom makes it, marinating it in lots of lemon juice, peri-peri sauce, chilli pepper and lots and lots of garlic ... the authentic Mozambican way. Everyone loved it and started talking about putting a peri-peri chicken dish on the menu at Pot Luck."
The dish, the first that Dias and Roberts worked on together, evolved: "The chef turned my mom's peri-peri into the dressing we use today on the dish. The chicken breast is marinated in herb yoghurt and braaied. Luke worked this Portuguese bread puree I told him about into a bread and almond puree. I contributed a kale and pepper salad with a smoky 'braai' vinaigrette and sourdough croutes."
Dias still loves soaking up other cultures - he recently did a two-week stage at Mexico City's Quintonil, placed 11th in the World's Top 50 Restaurants last year - but his favourite dish in the world remains his mom's caldo verde, the Portuguese soup of greens, potatoes and chouriço...