Luiz Silva worked for seven years at the renowned São Gabriel restaurant, in Almancil, next to the Head Leonel Pereira, holder of a Michelin star. It was there that, by chance, he learned, for the first time, what would become his passion: the bakery. He studied, tested and risked, until creating the "Bread and butter", a brand that has been growing and delighting customers, not only in the Algarve.
After creating the project in 2017, Luiz Silva fulfilled, this year, one more objective: he set up a warehouse, in the Franqueada zone, near the Loulé Industrial Zone, which he transformed into the US bread factory.
But to get there, there were years and years of struggle: four to be precise, in a story that deserves to be told.
«My taste for bread…Well, I worked for seven years at the São Gabriel restaurant, next to the Head Leonel Pereira. The team was very good and there was a colleague, named Leandro Araújo, who did creative things for the staff», he tells Sul Informação.
On one occasion, Luiz, who was born in Brazil but has lived in Portugal for almost a decade, saw his colleague baking bread and decided to learn. “But he did one good thing and another bad thing: the good thing is that he taught me, the bad thing is that he left me,” he says, between laughs.
So, on his days off, in his spare time, Luiz Silva began to study, test and turned the «room into an authentic fermenter».
«At work, I used to go early to bake bread and things started to happen. At a certain point, I fell in love with it and started making bread for the staff, for the customers, for my neighbors and everything started to grow», he says.
Until, in 2019, already with a set of recipes in tune, Luiz Silva actually left São Gabriel, started working as a baker and dedicated himself completely to this passion.
«I can say that everything I have achieved, this new space that I found, was all the result of my focus and my work», he confesses. It's just that, shortly after becoming a full-time baker, Luiz Silva felt that he «needed his own space».
«Before, I worked only at home, I managed as much as possible, but now I have this space, I started to fix the ovens little by little, with the help of some friends, namely “Pãezinhos da Maria”, a company from Ericeira», he says. .
And what kind of bread does Luiz Silva make? For now, there are four varieties that come out and are sold in 14 locations, including grocery stores and restaurants, spread across Faro, Almancil, Loulé, Quarteira, Portimão, São Brás de Alportel, but also Lisbon and Évora. Before, I placed private orders, but now only sells in grocery stores and restaurants.
"I have oat bread, plum and rye bread, flaxseed bread, with fleur de sel, and wholegrain bread," but there is much more on the way.
«With my research, I developed a notebook, with around 100 recipes in total. My goal is to do it little by little, calmly, adding more products to the market», he reveals.
Above all, Luiz Silva has a maxim: «people know that my bread has a value a little higher than the average, but the quality is higher». An example of this is the fact of betting on local products, such as Flor de sal de Castro Marim, from the company Salmarim.
In these times of difficulty for so many companies, the creator of “Bread with Manteiga” turns out to be a success story and an example of entrepreneurship, labels that he does not discard.
«What I think is that any creative and willing person can go anywhere. Of course there are sleepless nights, and I've been through that, but if I've achieved any success, I owe it to the customers, because I know I've delivered a lot of bread that I knew wasn't at my peak, but people have always believed in me. », concludes.
Anyone who wants to can follow the work of Luiz Silva and his “Bread with Manteiga” on Instagram or Facebook.
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