“I couldn’t do a nine to five job, I need the adrenaline, the unexpected changes, the ups and downs of winning and losing, the dramas, the all sports life excitement,” says Will Carvalho, the current performance chef at Gallagher Premiership rugby club Gloucester.
In a career that has taken him from the blazing heat of a kitchen just a few miles from the Equator to fuelling the bellies of the Brazilian women’s football side and Scottish national rugby team, if you had told a young Will that this would be his path, he wouldn’t have been all that surprised.
“I always had a very strong mind in what I wanted to do, although I didn’t always want to be a chef. I knew that I wanted to be someone and have a bit of a name though. Not for fame or glory, but I wanted to just do something a little bit different.”
This tendency to gravitate towards novelty and away from any potential stifling rigidity of an office job, Will attributed to the culturally diverse household in which he grew up in.
“My family is pretty mixed culturally. My mum is French, my dad was Portuguese and that’s where I grew up, but I have family spread across different countries and speak fluently in four languages. In my opinion, this put me in a position to be a bit of a traveller. In fact, when I joined catering school and was asked why I wanted to get into hospitality, I answered that I was drawn to the idea of travelling.”
The initial emphasis on the lifestyle that a career in cooking could provide as opposed to a burning passion for the skill of cooking itself however almost derailed a career in hospitality before it had even started.
“I think for the first two years of catering school, I didn’t really enjoy it. At the time I was 17 and loved having different girlfriends. I was probably a nightmare to work with because I would try to take out all the girls I worked with. I wasn’t very likeable to the older ones.”
An end of year report card however saw a rapid switch in where Will’s motivation was sourced from.
“I always remember a report that had a comment that said they doubted I would ever be a chef in the future. I then grabbed that comment from the chef and used it to prove them wrong. It all seemed to take off after that.”
Having decided to fully devote himself to the course, Will graduated and impressively finished second in his class and began to fully fall in love with the art of cooking. This led to him asking the question of where next? He jumped head-first into a two-year experience at a resort in São Tomé and Príncipe, a Portuguese-speaking island nation off the west coast of Central Africa. Travelling to work every day, a journey that saw him cross the Equator daily, the experience saw Will develop a non-cooking skillset that proved hugely beneficial in the years to come.
“I went to live in Africa, which gave me an opportunity to learn more about different types of foods and ingredients. It was also the first place I worked at where I was properly in charge of people. It came really out of the blue, the guy running the place just told me that I was going to be in charge. One of the things about working in Africa, not being from there made a difference so I had to find a way to gain trust. That experience was critical because I had to justify why I was there. Not just in terms of cooking, but the human relations aspect too.”
Finding a way to build that trust, Will says, is not possible without a strong understanding of how to read people and tap into who they are as an individual.
“I’m very good at reading people and there’s a few techniques that have helped me with this. Being Latin, we’re all about shaking hands when interacting. If someone shakes your hand straight away, naturally I think ‘okay, well he’s more open.’ If someone stays in the background though and maybe just raises their hand, you realise that perhaps you need to gain their trust a little bit.”
Having that ability to read body language has been an integral part of Will’s successful transition from respected chef in a restaurant to his current role as a performance chef within sport. In a restaurant, interaction with those you are cooking for is limited, which can hide any social or communicative weaknesses a chef may have. Cooking for the same 40 individuals three times a day? This requires an ability to not only read people on an individual level but to understand group dynamics too.
“You need to understand your role. I can’t just go into the changing room at half-time and expect the players to be having craic with me just because I’m the chef. I know there is a time for me, a space for me and it has to be that way.”
The transition from working in a restaurant to cooking for elite athletes came in 2011 after an opportunity arose to mix working in London with working with the Brazilian woman’s national football team at a tournament in Switzerland.
“My job in London allowed me to go back and forth between the two and I found myself really starting to get the bug for working in sport. It hit me that if I am working in a restaurant or hotel, I may get told that table number 7 really enjoyed their meal, but I’ll never know who table number 7 actually is. With a team though, it’s the same people you are cooking for, there is more collaboration, things need to be altered and you get the instant feedback of knowing what the players think. If you win, then you get to win with them, but if they lose then you lose too.
“Team sport is all about trust, connection and being able to read and execute moments. If you can’t do that, you’re gone. For me, the cooking is obviously very important, but the character and personality side even more so. What do I bring to the team? What do I know about the players? If you can have players and coaches opening up to you, you can become a huge element of trust and part of the foundation of a culture.”
Although being a chef at a restaurant requires a significant level of cooperation, collaboration in an elite sporting environment is endless. Whether it’s working with coaching staff or strategising meal plans with nutritionists, as an individual who “grew up in a small town where everyone knows everyone and everyone defends everyone,” you can’t help but feel this suits Will’s inclusive and collaborative personality perfectly.
“Every day I speak to the nutritionists and coaches. We have a WhatsApp group and we’ve created a system where me and the nutritionist can change the menu on an online platform. We can both exchange ideas and, if a training session changes, I’ll receive a notification, we can speak and then make changes accordingly. It’s important to get this right because if the training intensity increases, the level of energy and repair foods on offer to the players will need to be altered. Sometimes we don’t tell the players what they are doing for training, but if they see there’s a lot of fuel options on offer that there’s a big training day ahead.”
Working alongside the players to understand their needs, also, is something Will suggests requires a level of awareness and intuition.
“When Scotland went on tour in Argentina last year, three weeks into the tour we decided to make a Sunday roast because the players were missing home. Reading these moments, the space and being intuitive to what the group needs is a completely different skill that no cooking school can teach you.
“In sport, when you have a lot of different cultures, you have to cater for the needs of all of them in different ways. For example, you might have Argentinian’s in a team, they don’t like spicy food. English boys though, they like spicy foods because they will have grown up having different curries and different cultures around them. When working with Brazilian athletes, they always have beans, rice and green veg with a meat.”
Whilst some athletes have an impressive understanding of their body and its requirements, at times Will has learnt to trust his gut if he wants to adequately protect theirs.
“Scotland played a game in Argentina last year and Zander Fagerson had three bowls of carbonara before the game. I was trying to tell him that he was eating too much but he just kept telling me how delicious it was. On the 70th minute he came off the pitch, I was on the bench and the first thing he said was that every scrum he was going into, all he could taste in his mouth was carbonara.”
It is clear that a mix of Will’s upbringing and experience has carved him into a chef who fundamentally makes good food and understands the needs of those around him in a nutritional sense. Behind this though is an individual who cares greatly about people and deeply values the idea of community and a collective oneness. Alongside this, he has a burning desire to continue to improve himself, to learn and to develop.
“I always need to prove myself and kick onto the next level. I always want to be better and any time I achieve anything, my mind seems to move onto what is next and how I can improve. I am happy with what I’ve done so far with Brazil’s national women’s team, Gloucester and Scottish rugby, but I’ll probably go into football at some stage and have a go at the Premier League one day.”
Quick-fire Questions
How would you describe yourself in three words? Explosive, loyal and committed.
How would your family and friends describe you in three words? Passionate, stubborn and friend.
Extroverted or introverted?
Extroverted.
Biggest personality strength?
Loyalty.
Biggest personality weakness?
I will go above and beyond for people and sometimes I expect others to do the same too, which can be frustrating when they don’t. I think it comes from being a team player and always growing up in close environments where all people stick together.
You’re on death row, getting brought out for your final meal. What’s on the table?
Starter: Foie gras.
Main: Grilled sea bass.
Dessert: A warm custard tart with cinnamon on the top. I’d have it with a double espresso and a red Marlboro even though I don’t smoke anymore but since it’s for a special occasion!
Drink: With the starter I’ll have a Sauternes, a nice French white wine that is very sweet. For the main course, I’ll have Aveleda, a good green wine from Portugal. For dessert I’ll go a port and with the espresso I’ll have a glass of Oban Whisky.
Best piece of advice you have ever been given? Don’t stop or change being yourself. A director at Gloucester used to say that a lot and it has always stuck with me.
