Fire
Embers, plancha, kamado, gas, smoking, cooking on the move. By extension, any transformation by heat. What matters isn't the fuel: it's being able to read the heat and correct it.
Barbecue coach · Góis, Portugal
Fire isn't the subject. It's the tool.
25 years spent making fire my comfort zone. I help the people who want to stop circling the grill.
The filter
Three words, and everything follows
Matter
The product, the sourcing, the season. Fermentation, pickles, home-cured charcuterie. What changes when you give it time — smoke included: it's an ingredient, not a decoration.
Craft
The hand, the knife, the cut, the edge, the block — and the gear you take outside, judged by use rather than by a spec sheet. What can't be explained but can be shown, and repeated until it comes out right.
A subject that hooks onto none of the three isn't for me — whatever the opportunity.
The Workshop · free
Base camp
Short video modules on the fundamentals: lighting a fire, holding a temperature, choosing a tool. Free, in exchange for an email address — and unrelated to the professional training, which happens at your place, with your team.
These are my fundamentals, not a neutral course: I defend a way of doing things, and I explain why. It's where you start when you want to understand fire before deciding to go further.
The modules are in French for now — English subtitles are on the way.
Who I am
Régis Calcus, and 25 years of fire
Belgian, settled in Góis, in the Portuguese mountains. Training chef, cabinetmaker before that, twice runner-up French barbecue champion in 2024 and 2025 — and since 2026, judge at the France BBQ Masters and European ambassador for the BBQ World Cup. Fire was a way of life before it became a job.
I train professionals across Europe, I work with brands that actually manufacture something, and I coordinate the EBU Crew, a pitmaster collective active in seven countries. Between trips I cook outside, I ferment things, and I film what comes of it — including what had to be done again.
Educator, not influencer. That distinction isn't negotiable.
Working together
Bringing fire into your trade
I'm a barbecue and outdoor cooking coach, working with professionals — restaurants, caterers, food trucks. Three ways to call on me, depending on what you're after and the time you have.
Coaching
Sustained support, to build your fire-cooking offer end to end — you, not your brigade.
- One session a week, one objective at a time
- Your menu, your equipment, your constraints
- Remote, without blocking your diary
At your place
I come to your kitchen, on your equipment, under your service conditions.
- At your station, with what you already own
- The team learns in service, not in a classroom
- You come away with answers, not notes
One call's worth
One precise question, one decision to make: a purchase, a menu, a cook that won't hold. We book a call, you leave with an answer.
- One hour, with no obligation to continue
- Billed hourly, the rate given before we set a date
- No affiliate links — including “what you have is enough”
The journal
Notes from the embers and the road
What I try, what I start over, and what ends up holding. Techniques explained properly — temperatures, timings, equipment — matter left to work, and field notes from wherever the job takes me.
Recipes too — but with what makes them work: why that temperature, why that timing. Enough to redo them at home, on your own kit, and know what to fix when it didn't come out.
Raspberry kombucha mocktail smoked with Vanilla & Black Tea
A raspberry second ferment, a Vanilla & Black Tea Élixir bead: the first time I've managed to get smoke into my kombucha.
What fermentation is doing in my barbecue
Sourdough, kombucha, pickles: why you see me spending so much time on jars when fire is what I work with.
The fire bowl is a cooking tool, not garden furniture
Grillrost's fire bowl, and what its design says about cooking outdoors.
The letter
Every now and then
What happens around the fire, on no fixed schedule. No promotions, no ten-part series.
Get in touch
A question? Write to me.
I read everything myself. A project, a date, a doubt about equipment — all of it is worth discussing.