Welcome home, welcome at L'imparfaite ✨

L'Imparfaite, that's me! So nice to meet you 🙂

I'm Raphaële, food-and-life-lover since 30 years, coming from the South of France.

What I love the most? 1/ eating the tomatoes we've just picked from my dad's vegetable garden, 2/ cooking products I've bought on a Saturday morning market, 3/ singing loud on karaokes (but that's another story).

Since I was a kid I've always dreamt of opening someday a place that would look like me: a happy place, where a lot of things would happen, where everyone would feel good and could be gourmand. Between me as a kid and me now, some time has passed but this dream hasn't, and today I'm super happy and excited to share with you the project of my life.

8 years ago, at the end of my studies, I spent 8 months in Lisbon and ... I cannot really explain you whether it's this specific atmosphere, or the people's kindness, the colors of the city, the coffeeshops everywhere, the hills that challenged my breath but developed my ass, the beauty of the fado, the waves on the Coast of Caparica ... but I just felt in love. Deeply, quickly, in love with this Portuguese city.

The following years, while I was living in Paris and facing the pollution and people stilling my bike all the time, I kept telling all the people I met "you'll see guys, I'm sure, someday I'll go back to Lisbon and I'll open my dream-café".

And it was meant to be! Some months ago I've moved back to Lisbon, with my cat and my determination, filled with this crazy ambition to open a place that would reflect my love for Portugal.

And when you think about it, 30 years old, it's a nice age to give up everything you know and give a bit more sense to your life, isn't it?

L'imparfaite, a place where we love life and good products

L'imparfaite is this kind of place where we highlight good products, you know, the ones we find close by and not on the other side of the planet, the ones that are produced by passionates (and passionating) people, the ones we savor with friends while telling fun stories and having a couple of drinks.

L'imparfaite is this kind of place where we laugh, where we can either speak loud or whisper sweet words to our lover, where we can listen to music, dream with a book, work on a new project or just make our child discover the taste of a tomato, you know, THE tomato, the real one, the sweet one, the one we pick in August and not in a supermarket!

L'imparfaite is a place in-between a café and a grocery-store, where we eat breakfast in the morning, we have lunch with colleagues, we meet with friends for tea-time, we have a drink after-work and we go back home with everything needed to cook the diner.

More concretely, it will be divided in two parts:

the grocery store where we'll first sell fruits & vegetables, eggs and bread and then also delicatessen, beers & wine,

the café (with about 30 seats and a terrasse) with a chef who will work with the products from the store and cook dishes of the day.

Besides this, we'll do events. Chefs' pop-ups, concerts, stand-up representations, DIY workshops with the kids ... there will be events for everyone!

The farmers 🍅

Since I've arrived, I've been visiting a lot of farms around Lisbon. They told me about them, their history, but also how hard this is to keep doing reasonable agriculture in a country where costs are so low that all European countries come there to do their shopping!

And then, they made me taste their products... and ... IT WAS THE FIREWORK IN MY MOUTH!!!

My project is centered around these farmers. I want to keep going and visit them, sell their products, make people discover their products, their work, talk about them... I want my customers to realize how COOLER it is to eat a tomato in August and a pumpkin in November, simply because tomato does taste like tomato in summer only, and if you believe in a reasonable agriculture and follow the seasons ... MAMAMIAAA it's so good!

The promise 🥰

Some weeks ago, I found the perfect place for the project. The place of my dreams, located in Sao Bento, a really nice area of Lisbon where both locals and expats live and work.

Decoration speaking, it looks like typically Portuguese. What I immediately loved about it is that you feel like in your grandma's kitchen.

There's 2 rooms: you enter by the first one where will be the grocery and the juice bar, and then you go to the second one where there will be the kitchen and the café.

PER-FECT I swear 🤗

Me, and the banks...

After some discussions with the seller of the place, my offer was accepted, I did a market study, a presentation and a super clear business plan, and I went to see the banks, full of confidence in me and my project.

HAHAHA (forced laugh). What a naive idea!

What I've heard here in Lisbon: "oh YES, you're project is great, I LOVE it! And WOW, what an impressive business plan. But Miss, you're French, we don't know you, what would we land you some money ? 🤔"

And in France: "oh YES, you're project is great, I LOVE it! And WOW, what an impressive business plan. But Miss, you're doing this in Portugal, what would we land you some money ? 🤔"

Start to identify my problem here? I was in the middle of a situation, and without any money from the bank (well, not as much as needed at least). And YES, I agree money can't buy hapiness, but hey, Beyoncé, explain me how I can do to "run the world" without it?

So here we are. I believe as hard as a tomato in January that with a lot of small things we can make big things happen. And without having any pretentiousness of changing the world, I believe really strong and will all my heart that together, thanks to this crowdfunding, we can give birth to this project.

Thank you thank you thank you <3

L'imparfaite, le café-épicerie qui met en avant les producteurs locaux

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