The garden
It began with the beds, not the room
A glasshouse table in Rio, where the morning harvest decides what we cook.
Let the garden lead, and cook only what the morning gives.
Lasai grew out of a small glasshouse on a quiet hillside above Rio de Janeiro, planted long before there was ever a dining room. We learned to cook by watching what came up each week, and the kitchen still works that way. The beds are picked at first light, sorted at the pass, and turned into supper while the leaves are still cool from the morning. Nothing travels far here, and very little is left to wait overnight.
We are still a small kitchen, and we like it that way. The room seats only as many as the garden can comfortably feed, and the pace of an evening follows the slow rhythm of growing things.
A kitchen that answers to the soil
Most of what reaches the table is sown by the same hands that cook it. Planning a menu starts in the seed trays, months before a single plate is plated.
How we work
01
Grown, then cooked
We sow for the table months ahead, so the kitchen answers to the garden rather than a supplier list.
02
Harvested daily
Crates come in every morning and go out the same night. Freshness here is measured in hours, not days.
03
Little waste, long use
Trimmings feed the compost, the compost feeds the beds, and the beds feed the room again.
From one glasshouse to a table
2011
A single glasshouse is planted on a quiet hillside above the city.
2014
The first dining room opens beside the beds, seating just over twenty.
2019
A second greenhouse and a ferment cellar double what the kitchen can grow.
Today
Lasai cooks almost entirely from its own soil, season by season.
At the pass and in the beds
Tomas Vieira
Tomas Vieira keeps one foot in the beds and one at the stove. He plans each menu from the seed trays out, choosing what to sow months before it ever reaches a plate. His cooking stays close to the soil, leaning on slow fire, gentle ferments, and herbs cut minutes before they are served.
Tomas Vieira
Chef and grower
The people in the rows
Caio Rezende
Sous chefLia Fontes
Cellar and poursPull up a chair beside the glass.