Chula Vista resident Leonardo Bauer is the executive chef at NOVO Brazil Brewing. Hailing from Southern Brazil, Bauer comes from a long line of gauchos. Gauchos are traditional cowboys in regions across Southern Brazil with a unique culture and lifestyle. Their love for Southern Brazil culture and a cuisine focused on meat, gauchos have carried their long traditions found on family ranches for centuries.
Before coming to NOVO, Bauer worked at the famed Brazilian-themed Fogo de Chao. Bauer has brought his gaucho culinary traditions to NOVO with his picanha, El Charro Ribeye, Costilla de Puerco En Barbeques, Brazilian sausage and empanadas.
Bauer frequently travels between his home in Chula Vista and his family’s ranch and farm in Cachoeira do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which shares a rich gaucho culture with its neighbors in Argentina and Uruguay since the 18th and 19th centuries. These skilled horsemen and cattle herders lived a nomadic lifestyle, roaming the grassy plains in search of grazing pastures for their livestock.
Bauer said he was born in the small city in Southern Brazil.
“Cachoeira means waterfall. I do not know why they named it that. There are no waterfalls here,” he said laughing.
His grandparents moved from Germany to Brazil during World War II. He said during that war, Southern Brazil gained many German and Italian immigrants.
“That is where my passion for cooking and hospitality that we have from the oceans in Southern Brazil,” he said. “It is naturally something we do when we gather at home or have friends come over. That is what makes being in the restaurant business so easy because it is basically what I have done my whole life. I used to see my grandmother cook in a wood oven with cast iron pans. I know that it makes a lot of difference when you know where things come from. We have a farm and range there, so we understand how things grow. You need to prepare the soil, plant the seeds, take care of the plants, then harvest and bring them in the house and make them into food to feed the people.”
Bauer said he always had an interest in the horses, cows, pigs, chicken, goats, milk cows, Angus cows for beef that were on his farm growing up.
“I understand from my grandmother baking homemade bread and pastas from scratch, plus the agriculture with soybean fields, you name it, I know how to plant,” he said. “I learned from the elders in the family how to cook these things in an older traditional way. We do have a big farm, doing large-scale agriculture. Nowadays, they use drones to take care of the farm and the fields. It is nice putting that together and serving people here in the United States, cooking the food, providing the hospitality to make their experience great. That is our nature. We do these things naturally. Someone who has grown up on the range and has comfort with the farm and the animals is a different style of life. Growing up as a gaucho is a very different style of living. I think that made a big difference in the person that I became when I moved to California. Just being here, doing what I know how to do, it is great. I think I add a lot to my staff, the people that I work with. The energy that I have, and my skills, makes a difference on a daily basis.”
Bauer was studying animal science in a public university in Brazil and in 2005 his university had a strike, so he used his German passport to come to California to learn more about the U.S. and discover new places. He arrived in Los Angeles in 2006, with the intention of staying for only a few months to enjoy and learn how to surf. He started working in the restaurant industry so he could buy better surf boards and a car. He did return to Brazil after three months, but after a month back home he told his family he was returning to California to also make a living here.
“I started working at fancy restaurants in LA in Beverly Hills,” he said. “I noticed by being who I am, I was doing great.”
After working in several restaurants, working at the Oscars, and meeting many celebrities and working with renowned chefs, in 2008, Bauer opened his first restaurant with his brother, and ran the restaurant during a recession, and after three years, sold the restaurant and he began working for Fogo de Chao in 2013.
“All they talk about is the culture of the gauchos,” he said. “I worked with Fogo to learn more about restaurants, and they were very successful. When I started with them in Beverly Hills, they already had almost 30 restaurants.”
Fogo de Chao transferred Brauer to San Diego to open one of its first restaurant in this region. He then went back to LA to become a manager of the restaurants. Four years later, he helped a friend open a steak house in Los Angeles, and in 2019 while working in restaurants, and construction, he was going to move back to San Diego or Hawaii, but he met the owner of NOVO.
“Tiago Carneiro showed me his big project here in Chula Vista in Otay Ranch,” he said. “I visited the location. We spent the whole day together. He showed me the project. We worked together. We cleaned up the mess there. After that day, I began working with him. It was in October 2019.”
With closures during the pandemic, Brauer, with ‘handyman skills” continued working for NOVO. He helped them open its Ocean Beach location. Reopened the Otay location, and a small bar in National City, and the Imperial Beach and Mission Valley locations.
“It was a win, win for me and the company,” he said. “It has been successful because every game, every fight, everyone is coming to visit. They say the food, hospitality, and energy is amazing.”
