Chef of black cuisine takes over the hotel where she was a chambermaid

When accompanying her mother, a chambermaid, to the Central Hotel, in the center of Recife, the chef from Pernambuco, Rosa Maria do Nascimento, 57, went up to the top floor to watch the ships arriving and departing. She liked to imagine that the 1920s building was a castle.

Today, Rosa runs the venture, located in the Boa Vista neighborhood. Founded in 1928, it was once the highest in the Northeast region – and almost closed due to the pandemic.

The building was listed by the state government in 2018. The text of the Official Gazette highlighted the Central as an architectural peculiarity, being the first large hotel in Pernambuco. The place has 59 apartments, with daily rates starting at R$ 200 for January, according to booking sites.

With access to a BRL 30,000 contribution through the Baobá fund, a fund aimed at promoting equity and racial rights, she was able to take over the management of the hotel.

She says, in testimony to the Sheet, being proud to be a black woman who always knew she could be wherever she wanted to be. “Even if white and rich society still resists seeing us out of the back of the kitchen. Not only as a black woman, but as a woman, it became clear to me that every woman can and should be wherever she wants.”

My mother, who was illiterate, had me named Rosa Maria, but my father always changed our names at the registry office. I only found out that my name was Rozenir when I entered school, but I was always called Rosa at home.

With 12 children to raise, my father was in the military and my mother worked her whole life as a maid and maid. At the age of nine, she left the interior for Recife, to take care of the children in the house of the man who built the hotel. She started working on it at age 13, bringing food to the construction workers; after the inauguration, she was a cleaner and chambermaid.

I grew up in this hotel and I love the building like it’s a part of me. The first memory I have of him was hiding in the maids’ trolley and going to the top, on the eighth floor, to watch the ships dock in the harbor. It is the first skyscraper in Recife and the view was even more beautiful, it looked like a castle that had sprouted in the middle of the city.

I started working at the hotel at the age of 18, also as a chambermaid, but I identified with the kitchen right away. When I arrived, the menu was thinner, the waiter was wearing a tailcoat. Over time, I started to include northeastern and popular food on the menu — I started making oxtails, buchada, chicken giblets, fish.

Northeastern food is seasoned and tasty: it’s to eat, sweat cold and then look for a hammock to lie down. With the turnaround, the business was soon successful and attracted customers from outside the hotel. I leased the hotel’s restaurant in 2016, which I called Tempero da Rosa.

The feeling was so good, a black woman running that restaurant that had served the elite, from singer Carmem Miranda to President Getulio Vargas, now transformed into a place that had my face. The owner said that I brought joy to the hotel, but he unfortunately died in 2019 and soon the pandemic came.

When the heirs said they were thinking of closing the hotel, I lost my ground. It was as if he had been stabbed in the chest. They then asked me if I wanted to babysit until the pandemic passed. From a few years ago, he had already been experiencing difficulties and the movement was weak. My daughter was against it, she said it wouldn’t work, but I ended up agreeing to rent the entire hotel.

It was two years of much despair and struggle. As I’m very passionate, I told myself that I was going to put this forward with serenades, book launches, pagoda circles. The people were giving ideas and I was doing it. The press in Pernambuco started reporting on it and we became a reference point in the city again.

Today, many people come from far away to try fish with pirão, shredded termite and codfish. The advancement of vaccination has made the demand for accommodation stronger. With the money from the Baobá fund, I was able to buy an industrial stove and blender and replace the chairs in the restaurant.

I started hiring a bunch of people who had no jobs and no experience. Currently, there are 23 women on the team and the work is big, but I enjoy teaching. I give jobs to people from 18 to 65 years old.

Artists have been staying here and people end up helping me a lot, but it’s not easy to maintain a listed building and 59 apartments — you need to change the television, air conditioning. My dream is to continue to have strength and receive more support, to keep this heritage ever more alive.

Testimony to Douglas Gravas