Go Goa founder and Head Chef, Roy along with Valentina are keen to present their mouth-watering dishes to the community of Edinburgh.
Here at Go Goa we make food from scratch. We work with local farmers and food producers to carefully source seasonal ingredients. Our Goal is to make unique food that tastes like home “OUR HOME”.
About Goa & Goan cuisine
Goa is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region. For 450 years Goa was an overseas territory of the Portuguese Empire, until it was liberated to form a part of India in 1961. Goa to this day exhibits the cultural influence of the Portuguese, which also extends to their cuisine. Traditional Goan food may be divided into Goan Catholic and Goan Hindu cuisine, with each showing very distinct tastes, characteristics, and cooking styles.
Goan cuisine is notorious for its different variety of fish dishes cooked with elaborate recipes. Fresh coconuts are also widely used in Goan cooking along with chili peppers, spices, and vinegar, which gives the food a unique flavour.
About Go Goa Founders
Roy and Valentina were born and brought up in Vasco Da Gama, the largest city of Goa.
Roy is well known among his family & friends for creating mouth-watering dishes, having over 20 years of combined cooking experience in India, Dubai, Cruise ships, the USA and Scotland. As a teenager he would always wake to alluring aromas coming from his mother’s kitchen and began to take an interest in his mother’s culinary creations. He is inspired not only by his mother’s recipes but by a cook book that caught his eye in his neighbour’s kitchen when he was young that was filled with exciting recipes. Roy enjoys incorporating locally grown spices in his cooking as he finds it very nostalgic, reminding him of those smells from his teenage years. Working in top restaurants, flight catering and hotels, Roy learnt that the best moments in life are made face to face, may that be with staff, customers or external vendors which inspired him to open his own takeaway.
Valentina too showed a keen interest in cooking at a very young age. During her teenage years she always looked forward to the local festivals back home in Goa because of the opportunity it gave her to cook different Goan based dishes. Both tasting and cooking dishes to enjoy at these festivals awarded her the skills to create a variety of mouth-watering Goan dishes and inspired her to take on her own culinary adventure!
