Restaurateur determined to serve authentic Portuguese culinary delights

Fernando Real

Drawn to Macau’s charm, Fernando Real started visiting the city occasionally since he first came here in the 1970s. Over forty years on, Fernando and his wife Elisabete are in Macau to share their passion for serving unique Portuguese flavors at a franchised version of their Tromba Rija restaurant, now open in Macau Tower.
“Well… How did I get here? One of the first things I did when I started my military service was come to Guangzhou. So I took the opportunity to visit Hong Kong and Macau. The first time I came here was in 1972,” he recalled, adding that there was something about the city that had always captured his attention.
Although he did not visit Macau often, every time he visited surrounding countries, Fernando would take the chance to visit the city again. In 2004, he and his wife received an invitation from the Macau Tower to showcase some of their restaurant’s best dishes for a month.
“Between 2004 and 2009, Macau Tower continued to invite us to present some of our dishes at a tasting event for a month. In 2010 and 2011, we were invited to do the same in mainland China,” Fernando said in an interview with The Times.
Meanwhile, the idea of opening a dining establishment with the same name and concept as their restaurant in Portugal, Tromba Rija, started to take shape here in Macau.
The original restaurant was established by Fernando’s father-in-law, in Leiria, situated in the center of Portugal. After his father-in-law passed away, his wife was left in charge of the restaurant and soon Fernando Real would also join her in developing and cementing a new concept.
The couple has assigned the rights of their brand and concept to a company operating food and beverage establishments in the Macau Tower.
But this is no ordinary franchise; Fernando Real will be leading the restaurants’ operations for over a year so that the flavors and the passion on which this restaurant is based remain faithful to the original Portuguese version.
“I could not conceive the idea of opening a restaurant without having someone overseeing the operation here. And the management personnel here at Macau Tower shared the same opinion. They thought there should be a Portuguese person involved in the process of setting up the restaurant and overseeing it. We have had our restaurant in Portugal for over 40 years now and a lot of people know us from there,” he stressed.
For at least a year, Fernando Real will be behind the operations at Tromba Rija in Macau, putting his passion to good use. “This is a 20-year contract in which we have assigned them the rights to use our name and concept here in Macau, China and Hong Kong. We have also agreed that I will stay here for over a year, and afterwards I will aim to come here for one month every four months,” Fernando said, adding that since this is a concept that he and his wife developed over the past 40 years “it feels it is important to be here [at this stage].”
Mr Real does not rule out the possibility of prolonging his stay, as he sees it as an advantage to the company as well. After all, being responsible for a restaurant’s operations has been his passion for the past 40 years. “I am almost 70 years old and, reaching this phase in my life, I need to do what I like the most. My wife and I are passionate about the restaurant and about serving Portuguese food. So if they let us, we will remain in town,” he added.
The restaurant, located on the ground floor of the Macau Tower, sits on an ample space and is carefully decorated with traditional Portuguese mosaics. It promises customers as much freedom as they can get to try different food combinations, as a generous lunch and supper buffet filled with Portuguese delicacies awaits all diners.
Octopus salad; tomatoes filled with traditional Portuguese sausage and ham; the most traditional and well-known codfish dishes; or fig salad with Portuguese air-dried ham arugula are just some of the delicacies available at a buffet that promises a wide array of flavors.
To remain faithful to Portuguese cuisine, Fernando acknowledged that some of the ingredients have to be imported from Portugal. “It’s not easy to find all the ingredients here, it’s true. Theoretically we should import everything from there. But we end up importing only what we think is imperative. Everything that we see will not change the flavor of our dishes, we buy here,” he said.
Portugal’s famed suckling pig is one of the top priorities on their “goods-to-be-imported” list, as experience tells them that buying it from Macau and its neighboring countries might not be such a wise move. Fernando explained that it is difficult to achieve that unique flavor of the suckling pig without importing the pigs from back home.
The flavors are indeed Portuguese, but Fernando also recalled that real Portuguese food is above all… European! “Portugal has a Latin-style gastronomy. Portugal, France, Spain and Italy have a similar type of food, it’s all based on a Mediterranean diet and of course although dishes vary; their base and concept are similar.”
Fernando is convinced that the company behind the franchise will remain faithful to Tromba Rija’s flavors and concept, and that customers of different nationalities are bound to appreciate it. “People have the freedom to make their own food combinations; they can combine the dishes we have in our buffet and that’s something we think the Chinese people, for instance, appreciate.”
Furthermore, Fernando and Elisabete’s secret to maintaining a steady flow of customers is the passion they have always injected into their restaurant. And it’s not only about food: “There’s something very important: a restaurant needs to have character. I chat with customers, I even sit at the table with them at times, I want to know what they think [about the food]. I try to put a bit of my soul here. And that’s when I feel happier,” he acknowledged.
Tromba Rija at the Macau Tower, which opened last month, serves a lunch buffet for MOP218 and a dinner buffet for MOP318.