January 19, 2024, was the day everything changed for Gislaine and Alex Figueira.
That morning, Gislaine was checking her email when her phone dinged. “Congrats on being named a James Beard semifinalist!” one text read.
She told her husband Alex who, along with Gislaine herself, are the owners of Dr. Kustom, a beloved food stall in Tulsa’s Mother Road Market. They opened the restaurant in 2020, not long after coming here from their native Brazil.
“I didn’t know what it was,” Alex admits about the recognition, “and when I looked it up, I was shocked by how important the James Beard Awards are. Just being on the semifinalist list changed our lives forever.”
Demand tripled – which wasn’t entirely a good thing. Pasteles, stuffed Brazilian pastries, are their biggest seller, and it takes a whole day to make the dough and laminate it (folding and stretching again and again). They could have cut corners – not laminated the dough – but they didn’t. Everything made at Dr. Kustom is made the same labor-intensive way today as it has been from the beginning.
“We have lots of regulars,” says Alex. “We don’t even ask what they want. We know their favorite flavor, so when we see them we pop it in the oven.”
Even more popular is the picanha sandwich. The top sirloin steak is cut by hand, and when Alex’s arms are about to drop, he stops making them. They are sold only on Thursday mornings, and people line up ages before the store opens. They’re often sold out within the hour.
One thing that has changed is the address; it’s no longer a stall in the food market. You can find it in a sleek, wood-paneled building a few feet north. After the James Beard announcement, the Figueiras were besieged with offers. Three or four companies wanted to make it a franchise. They turned them all down.
“We like what we have,” Alex told me, “something small, in our hands, under our control.” But the Market’s offer to let them have a building to themselves could not be turned down. The couple hired WoffBuilt designers to build a kitchen full of dream goodies. The grill and oven is a Josper, a famous high-temperature charcoal oven made in Spain.
“It’s a magic box,” says Alex. “Everything you put in gets great flavors.” There’s also a dry ager. Sometimes Alex dry ages prime steaks for 45 or 60 days. But that’s for Chef’s Table.
For that special event, the building is empty except for you and your party, plus the Figueiras. The menu is a secret, designed just for your group. Chef’s Table is fully booked through most of 2027, and the only way to get an earlier slot is to buy one of the dinners the Figueiras donate to charity auctions.
“It’s a celebration for diners, and a celebration for us,” says Alex. “We have the opportunity to have an elegant family dinner the way it’s done in Brazil. The courses are a fusion of Brazilian, French and some African elements since many Brazilian families came from Africa. We enjoy explaining each dish, how it’s served in Brazil. When it starts, people are nervous sometimes, but when it ends, it’s a party. Sometimes it takes a week to prepare.”
As Alex talks, I see Gislaine chopping a huge bundle of greens with a knife.
“That’s for fresh herb sauce. We make it fresh every day,” she says. Gislaine has always taken part in the cooking, but one recent change is that their daughter now does, too. She recently graduated from the Escoffier School, adding French technique to her repertoire.
“I love cooking, I love showcasing my dishes,” she says. “I love thinking of all the things we can do.”
