BUILD YOUR OWN FREEDOM

Nicolas Curtil spent fifteen years chasing perfection. Three toques, 16/20 in the Gault & Millau guide, a mountain restaurant in Austria, days that started before sunrise. Then he walked away from all of it. In 2017 he sold the restaurant. With his wife Susanne and their children, he drove a truck to Portugal, bought seven hectares and three ruins, and started building a life with his own hands. He called it Malama. Eight years later, he grows his own food, cooks with parasol mushrooms he finds on his land, and still learns something new every day. He isn't a guru. He's someone who left the safe road, made every mistake along the way, and lived to tell the truth about it. When he isn't writing, he's building, cooking, or sitting on a bench he made from an oak that fell at the neighbour's.