The first address is already up and running, at Villa Lobos Mall, in São Paulo, which will also receive the second place, in April 2020.
Luísa Bielawski, Marketing Director of the Ráscal Group and daughter of the founders of Vienna and Ráscal, went to New York last year to discover new trends in the food industry. She wanted to see the burgers. But she was really impressed by the number of coffee shops dedicated to special coffee shops and the speed with which baristas prepare the beverages. “You know that story where a person targets one thing, but hits another? That’s what happened to us,” she says. As we are not from this market, before, we did not pay much attention to the subject. But it was clear the trend of increasing the quality of the cafeterias, with different terroirs such as wine, and we thought that we had to take advantage of this moment to invest in the area,” she explains.
Inspired, she returned to Brazil and went to study the subject, already decided to renovate the restaurant’s space on the ground floor of Villa Lobos Mall. “We already served coffee there, but made by the waiter himself, who is not a barista, nor knew how to operate the espresso machine very well, of excellent quality, by the way”.
But the idea now was to turn it into a cafeteria that really favored the quality of the coffee, of unique origin and prepared in the best possible way by a real barista. The location meets the needs of the Ráscal restaurant, which sells about a thousand meals a day. “And everyone orders coffee at almost the same time,” she says.
KFÉ Rascal counts on the prestigious consultant Silvia Magalhães
To take care of the mission, they hired the consultant Silvia Magalhães, from SM Cafés (read article here), who chooses the coffees, prepares it, stocks it and also trains the staff. “Silvia also helped us choose the espresso machine, a La Marzocco Strada A, the first one in operation in Brazil,” explains Luísa.
“We loved meeting Silvia and we bought her coffee supply model, since we wanted to have our own brand.”
The only requirement they made of the consultant was for her to bring special coffees that are not very exotic, capable of pleasing an audience that is not yet used to the new possibilities of sipping a differentiated coffee.
Because of the activities of the mall itself, they had to postpone the opening of the point until April, but decided to test the idea in a kiosk located on the second floor, in front of important stores, such as Zara and Animale. Which is already operating, in a soft open system, but which already gives the idea of the of the place’s vibe.
“As our head office is in the building right next to the mall, we have a very close relationship, we are always here. They were looking for someone to invest in a more sophisticated coffee shop, with a good supply of food too, a nice place to sit and talk, with the possibility of lunch, because it brings more public to the mall. We’re on time and the experience is being very good,” she says.
Investment
For the opening of the two cafeterias, they are investing around one million reais and have the executive chef, Nadia Pizzo, who is from Liguria, Italy, and her assistant, Marina Amaral, who was promoted and who is responsible for preparing almost everything that is served in KFÉ (instagram.com/kferascal), such as savories, cakes and more balanced sweets, without so much sugar.
“As we are an average company, we have the freedom to work without having to plan what will happen in five years’ time. We open and test, spend some time adjusting, modeling, and modifying the menu. We opened the cafeteria with 12 employees and are testing various recipes. We created a lunch menu with salads, pies, sandwiches prepared in the famous natural fermentation bread of the Ráscal, with turkey breast, all made by us”, explains Luisa.
The coffee
Silvia Magalhães chose the coffee from different origins for the place. Mascavo is a unique coffee, a catucaí from the Córrego Liberdade farm, in Pontões, Espírito Santo. Its description on the menu states that it is a velvety coffee with malic softness, with a taste of green apple, caramel and brown sugar.
Silvestre, on the other hand, is a blend of red and yellow catuaí from Sítio Águas Frias, in Alto Caparaó,Espírito Santo. For the preparation of the espresso, the consultant chose a grain of the Canary variety, cultivated in Vale da Grama, in the interior of São Paulo.
The customer can choose between two forms of drip coffee preparation: in Hario V 60 and Kalita Wave. “It’s very daring to have a drip coffee station in a mall cafeteria but it’s being very well accepted and, on the menu itself, it is given a time of 10 minutes for the preparation of it,” says Sílvia.
The 250 gram coffee packages with the Ráscal brand are also available for purchase.
The teas
The cafeteria has partnered with Tal Chá, which is providing green tea, and infusions of Rooibos and vanilla, intense red and natural mint.
For lovers of Indian tchai, prepared with spices and herbs from India, here’s a good tip: it is freshly prepared!
“Our idea is to be able to serve the coffee very well prepared for those who want to sit and enjoy the 30 places in our kiosk or, if they prefer, to go out walking with a paper cup to stroll around the Mall”, concludes Luisa.
KFÉ Ráscal – second floor, in front of Zara and Animale stores
Villa Lobos Shopping Mall
Av. das Nações Unidas, No. 4777, Alto de Pinheiros, São Paulo
