About

Joana Gonçalves practiced architecture when she created the dessert blog www.inthemoodforsweets.pt in 2012. That year she decided to change career and joined an apprenticeship with Belgian chocolatier Jean-Philippe Darcis. In 2013 she worked at The Cliff Bay in Madeira with Benoit Sinthon.

During her apprenticeships, she worked at Belcanto, the Ritz Four Seasons Lisbon, Fortaleza do Guincho and Feitoria. She was pastry chef at Eleven for 3 years and at the Bon Bon restaurant in 2017, another star in her life. In 2018 she was pastry chef at Quórum in Lisbon. That year, she was an assistant pastry chef at the Fifty Seconds by Martin Berasategui restaurant in Lisbon.

In 2019, she returned to Madeira to open Les Suites at The Cliff Bay.

With the arrival of the pandemic in the summer of 2020, she created a picnic project: Lá Fora Picnic, where she continues to focus on Madeiran products. In 2022, she opens CHOUX, creating a line of pastries focusing on regional fruit, where he explores the Madeiran terroir.