Born and raised Portuguese, food has always been a centerpiece in our lives. It brings together family, friends and communities all around the table, celebrating food as a part of our cultural identity.
As longtime friends and foodies, every time we travel around the world, we try to learn the most of that country´s culture and culinary traditions, so we often enrolled in cooking classes. One thing we noticed was the joy of everyone while cooking! The classes were very good and instructional, but what made us do more and more of them were the emotions generated and shared around a table, transverse to people with such different backgrounds.
On one of our travels, the idea hit us! Portugal has such a rich gastronomy deeply connected with its history, based on a wide variety of flavors and ingredients regionally dispersed, so why don’t we create a concept of our own adapted to our culture and customs? So, we came back to Portugal and started working on it. With our combined knowledge of food and business we created a plan, we executed it, and Compadre Cooking School was born.

João Lopes

A law school graduate, I always enjoyed cooking with my grandfather who was a chef, so sometime between the law degree, I studied Kitchen production in the Escola de Hotelaria de Coimbra. I love to travel every time I can, so at some point, I started to combine cooking and traveling. And that´s what I want to bring to Compadre cooking school, my two passions.

José Silva

My previous occupation as a civil engineer with a business management masters made me travel and work all around the world. Being a food enthusiast since I can recall, I always enjoyed discovering and trying local gastronomy wherever I went. Our dream of creating Compadre Cooking School allowed me to finally combine my passion for food and culture and my expertise in business.