Morango Do Amor: Annals of a Brazilian Chef

By Ryan Cleland (he/him)

In Brazil, there is a sweet known as Morango do Amor, or Strawberry of Love. At its heart lies a whole, ripe strawberry, sealed beneath a shell of glossy caramel sugar. When made correctly, the caramel crackles delicately between the teeth, a crisp contrast to the juicy fruit inside. But this is no simple task. As any pastry chef will tell you, the line between brittle and sticky is razor-thin; a few moments too long or too short, and the caramel can ruin the experience. 

For Dayana Felix, a Brazilian chef now based in Wellington, the Strawberry of Love represents more than just a dessert—it’s a symbol of the precision, patience, and passion that first drew her into the culinary world. 

I spoke with Felix last month from her quiet Roseneath flat and at the door was greeted with the aforementioned dessert. She spoke openly, her stories punctuated with laughter and the occasional glance towards the planes flying low overhead. 

Felix grew up on her father’s farm in Paraíba, in the Brazilian countryside. “Really poor people when we were there,” she recalls. But when she turned 18, she set her sights on Rio de Janeiro. It was there that her fascination with sweets began to take shape. “I was always crazy about chocolate. Every day I had to make something for me, like a dessert!” she laughs. While working as a cleaner in Rio, Felix enrolled in a two-year pastry course. After earning her certificate, she began baking cakes from home, slowly building up customers. With every dollar she saved, Dayana invested back into her dream, eventually opening her own pastry store. For four years, she ran her pastry shop. But life took an unexpected turn when she came here to Aotearoa—originally for just three months. 

Felix arrived in New Zealand in March of 2023, speaking no English; she came only briefly to help her sister. To acquire extra money she searched for a job part time. Felix tells me a funny memory of her knowing no English except the words “I am looking for a job. Anytime, any day. anywhere.” Not long later she found work in a kitchen. At first it was slow work, she spoke almost no English. “I could see how crazy they were working, not organised, but I couldn’t help. I didn’t understand,” she recalls. She started with dishes—“because it was easy”—before moving to the fryer. Slowly, she learned the language of dockets and moved onto the fryer. At this point it became clear she was to stay In New Zealand indefinitely. She recalls as her English improved the old head chef would use google translate to describe her work to her. “She'd translate everything to make sure I got it,” Felix told me. Not much longer later and she was covering for the chef herself. Felix’s rise through the kitchen was fast. 

Her turning point came during Wellington on a Plate, the city’s renowned food festival. “The head chef quit right before WOAP,” Felix remembers. “We had no one to make the burger, but I had seen her do it once. My English was still bad, but I told Anna, our manager, ‘I think I can do it.’” She laughs at the memory of misunderstanding the instructions. “They said it needed to be sticky, the texture, but I thought they meant the flavour. So I made the marinade all wrong. Later, Anna showed me a photo and I was like—ahh, now I get it! The secret was the tapioca flour.”

From there, Felix began developing the dishes that would become staples on Bebemos’ menu. Together with Anna, she refined the slaw, reworked the marinades, and created jalapeño poppers that were not only gluten-free but vegan as well. “It was a horrible idea, to make them from scratch,” she jokes, “but people loved it. And now it’s one of our bestsellers.” 

Her success during that WOAP earned her the role of head chef. “ After WOAP finished I went on holiday to Brazil for four weeks and before I left, Anna decided to tell me that I was being promoted to head chef.” The rest is history. Despite thriving in her role, Dayana admits pastry has never left her hands. “I think when you guys watch me cook maybe I still have pastry chef hands. Even putting the parsley on top is different,” she smiles. She told me that jalapeno poppers are the closest thing to pastries. “When I'm making jalapenos poppers I feel like I'm making pastry, because it's really delicate with breading and stuff.” Felix tells me that in her early months in Wellington, the long hours left little room for her pastry-making. “For a while, I thought maybe I don’t miss it, maybe I just want to be a chef now,” she says quietly. But through the strawberries of love I was gifted at the door it was clear that pastry-making was in her blood. “Thats one of my goals in NZ, I might just work just for me, start again and do my pastries because that's something I feel NZ doesn't have that much”, she says, with the same determination that once took her from a farm in Paraíba to the kitchens of Rio, and then across the world. 

Felix has been the creator of Bebemos’ most recent Wellington On a Plate competition, and it's clear the roots are in pastry-making. This year’s theme is Food is Love, and it's clear Felix’s love of pastry shines through with Bebemos’ burger entry, Pretty On The Outside. Pictured here, Pretty On The Outside is built on a cronut base and layered with minced, grilled chicken breast patty with streaky peppered pancetta, balsamic caramelised onions, deep-fried brie, dill pickle, and rocket—all glazed with a sticky strawberry chilli jam. Having watched Felix create it in the kitchen countless times it's clear It’s a creation that marries precision and indulgence; each piece of the burger-y puzzle is layered together finely—a clear reminder that, for Felix, pastry is never far from the plate. 

As she continues to lead Bebemos’ kitchen, Felix looks ahead to the future. She tells me that she would love to learn the ___ of italian cuisine. “One thing that I love is pasta, and I'd like to know how to prepare the perfect pasta”, she tells me, before comparing pasta to pastries: “it's more delicate and it's a lot of process to make the real dough.” Leaving Felix’s home that day I felt the same thing she had been describing all afternoon; the quiet discipline and care that go into every detail of her work. Just like her Morango do Amor, her journey has been one of precision, patience, and a little bit of risk—balancing the brittle and the sticky, the sweet and the sharp. As Felix tells me “I think everyone can be a chef. But pastry… you really need to love that.” And it's clear she does. If you wish to see more of her work you can check her instagram page at @chef_na_nova_zelandia_.