Fernanda is a Brazilian cook and ceramicist based in Los Angeles.
Her project Mesa has taken a few different shapes over the years. At the center, though, it has always been about food, and the people gathered around it.
She spent 12 years in New York - starting in restaurants, working front of house for years before moving into the kitchen. She later worked as a recipe developer and cook for CookUnity, a prepared-meal delivery service, learning a completely different side of cooking and production.
Those years gave her a view of hospitality from both sides of the room: the food, the service, the rhythm, and all the small things that make people feel taken care of.
Now, Mesa is finding a shape that feels more complete. It brings together everything collected along the way: cooking and hospitality, an understanding of service, a love of handmade things, ceramics, objects, and a belief that food can tell you something about where you come from and make you feel at home somewhere new.
In Los Angeles, she has worked with Brazilian chef Natalia Pereira at WoodSpoon, being part of the team when the restaurant received a Michelin Bib Gourmand. She later joined Natalia in Santarcangelo di Romagna for a cooking residency - bringing Brazilian food to a small corner of Italy and reconnecting with her own Italian-Brazilian family history.
