José Manuel Trigo. “In the Algarve, we sold very typical”

He began selling lots in Quinta do Lago in 1972, but it was in Brazil that he became interested in the nightlife scene, managing two of the most important nightclubs in Brazilian history: Hippopotamus and Regine's, where he met many Hollywood stars, international politicians, and the cream of Brazil, as well as members of Globo's world. In Portugal, he always had the reputation of owning his aunts' and uncles' nightclubs.

He's 75 years old and says he's not nostalgic, but he still hasn't given up on running a restaurant-nightclub again. José Manuel Trigo was responsible for providing music for the political, business, economic, and sports classes in the 1990s and early 2000s. T-Clube, Trigonometria, Torre Vasco da Gama, Stones, and Trifásico are his hallmarks of nightlife and restaurants in Lisbon, Quinta do Lago, and Braga. But few know that, together with Raul Durão, he renovated and refurbished the Lido nightclub in Amadora. This is the second interview with figures who have left their mark on the Algarve over the past thirty years.

He's lived in Quinta do Lago for many years . No, I live in Valverde.

Which is 50 meters from Quinta do Lago. Three meters. In fact, the original road was in front of my house. The road arrived there, curved, and entered the first roundabout, which is now the second. And there were a lot of bumps there, because people were coming at quite a speed. I still remember André's first wife spilling out there; it was a tight curve. Then André Jordan went through the first roundabout.

When did the T-Club open in Quinta do Lago? First, it was Trigonometria in '87, T-Club in '88, Stones in '89, and T-Club de Lisboa and Trifásica in '93. In '98, the Vasco do Gama Tower.

Don't you have any of these spaces today? I don't have any.

When you walk past Cuá Cuá, the former T-Club of Quinta do Lago, what do you feel? I'm not nostalgic. I'm more concerned with looking forward than back. But I like the Cuá Cuá project. Everything evolves; if I were to build a T-Club today, I wouldn't do it the same way I did in '88. The restaurant was separate from the bar, the bar was separate from the nightclub, the nightclub was separate from the garden. Today, the concept is practically a single room that 'becomes' a restaurant, and then, at 11 p.m. or midnight, the lights change, the entertainment begins, and it all becomes one big entertainment space. Therefore, if I were to build a T-Club today, I wouldn't do it with the original partitions, which were the same as back then. It's like clothing, it's like cars: models evolve, and we have to evolve too. I was there just last week [the week of August 10th to 15th], I went three or four times in August. Vera Roquette [his wife] is the one who hasn't yet mourned. Now, the shame is that we in the Algarve can't combat seasonality, because, for better or worse, the T-Club operated year-round. It's only in the last two or three years that this has changed. Years passed, and there was this more modern trend of nightclubs only opening for a month. Obviously, this had a terrible impact on the Algarve's entertainment scene, which is natural. I would 'fill' the well in the summer, we would draw some water in the winter to sustain the winter, and with any luck, at the end of August, we would pay off all our debts and see what was left in the bank. And then the sacrifice of September, October, November, and so on began again, then New Year's Eve, Christmas, Carnival, Easter, and then those June 10th holidays, and we would try to balance the books. And at the same time, there were also some conferences held at hotels, which, since they didn't have entertainment venues, would call us, and we'd throw open-bar parties for a thousand doctors at Trigonometria, for example. These kinds of things worked like a lifeline. But that also ended when Tivoli, for example, built that large conference center and started hosting parties there. It built its own business, as I would do.

Has the noose tightened? The Algarve is becoming increasingly seasonal; there's no off-season entertainment. It's almost impossible to get anything going in July, and then mid-August comes around, the doors close, and they leave, and that's it. In fact, at the time, we held meetings with the political establishment, explaining everything that was going to happen; everything is written down and clearly defined. They preferred a month's worth of entertainment.

How could you have fun all year round? I'm from a time when there was no highway to the Algarve, and on weekends, people would go for a drink in the Algarve. People came from Beja, Évora, and everywhere, and back then, Christmas was a bustling time in Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo, and Vilamoura; Easter was crazy. People would come from Porto for two or three days, spending a day up and a day down by car, without the highway. Today, the highway, I'd almost venture to say, has taken away instead of bringing people. In other words, it's easier for people from the Algarve to go to Lisbon to have fun than for people from Lisbon to go to the Algarve for a weekend, especially since they have nowhere else to go. These days, the only option is if you have a few kids and go to the Quarteira water slides.

Yes, but what was the solution for year-round operation? We have to get to the bottom of it. The bottom line is a set of circumstances. It's not some T-Club or Trigonometry or Kadoc or whatever that will boost Algarve tourism. Algarve tourism has to look at the whole picture. It's clear that one of the most important things will be gastronomy, well-being, the beauty of the region, etc., etc. I, José Manuel Trigo, am a sad, bitter man, because I see my Algarve without beauty. I enter the A2, exit the A2, and my car starts shaking all over because the Via do Infante road is chaotic. It's incomprehensible how an Algarve that contributes millions and millions of dollars in revenue to the Portuguese GDP, yet there's no money to resurface the Via do Infante. Is the country so miserable that it can't even repay the Algarve with asphalt to build a proper Via do Infante? And what about pollution? Today, the road to Quinta do Lago has more billboards than pine trees; it makes no sense. Tourists start with the aesthetic beauty, from the airport to their hotel. If all they see is trash on the side of the road, the asphalt full of potholes, terrible visual pollution everywhere… André Jordan said, in '82, when we returned from Brazil, 'How fortunate, the Algarve isn't fashionable yet.' But the problem is that the Algarve hasn't yet become fashionable. It has fantastic niches like Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo, Vila Lara, Vila Joia, etc., etc. But aside from these niches, I have hotelier friends who even have hotels in the Albufeira area, who say they have to take peripheral routes to Albufeira to avoid showing Albufeira to tourists. It's a real scandal when we get to a point like this. From an airport that takes three hours to get a passport stamped, to there being no entertainment—now, the prime minister says he's bringing Formula 1. Okay, but then tourists drive along Via do Infante to get to Formula 1 on a dilapidated road, with billboards everywhere, trash everywhere. It's chaos. The Algarve needs a cleanup. I'd clean it all up, and it would be the best way to promote it, because those who visit us are the ones who will go back to their hometown and say, 'Hey, I went to the Algarve and it's cool.' But tell me something. Is there a helicopter at Faro airport to take someone to their hotel or apartment? And you don't need to be rich, because I arrive in Nice, take the helicopter, and go to Monte Carlo. There's no helicopter, no Ferrari, no Rolls Royce to rent at Faro airport. When we talk about high-quality tourism, then we have to think...

Don't you want the State to do this? The State? No, the State has nothing to do.

So what needs to be done? I'm anti-state; I can't stand a businessman going to the state and saying he's having water shortages. The state says, "Yes, sir, we have to save water from our taps; let's install a smart tap." What's a smart tap? It's a tap that, instead of pouring water for 30 seconds, pours water for 15. And then the businessman comes along and says, "Give me a subsidy to buy a fucking tap." This is outrageous. In my 30 years as a businessman, I've never had the courage to ask for a subsidy, not even for a computer screw. Years ago I was making money, years ago I was losing.

But why aren't there Rolls Royces for rent or helicopters? Because this is a snake with its tail in its mouth. If you don't have quality tourists, you can't generate that kind of demand. On the other hand, there's also a lot of bureaucracy; perhaps there have already been attempts to put one or two helicopters there. I don't know what the answer was, but perhaps they said something, that it's complicated with the birds and complicated with the planes leaving and arriving, because this is the country of bureaucrats. We're so mired in bureaucracy that even if someone takes the initiative, is innovative, they run into a series of very serious problems and can't move forward.

When you say there's no quality tourism, Quinta do Lago does have quality tourism. Yes, but I'll give you an example: a major businessman, the owner of Formula 1, Ecclestone, wanted to buy a house in Quinta do Lago, but since he couldn't land there, he left.

Ayrton Senna landed . Okay, but probably without authorization. But if you were to ask for authorization, perhaps the first word would be no. The first word in Portugal for anything is no. We, in the Algarve, needed a housekeeper. One who would look, who would stop all the investments and say, 'Let's fix this.' And it's cheap, because the cheapest thing is to clean it. The cheapest thing is to lay down a carpet. André Jordan used to say, 'Hey boy, go paint the road.' Painting the road meant laying three or four centimeters of tar, putting white lines in the middle of the road, and it all looked pretty. Now, when you see a road all patched up, full of lines, the shoulders all full of trash, that no one cleans up...

I arrived at Quinta do Lago in 72. I was born in 1949, in Olhão, but I arrived at Quinta do Lago in 1972, after leaving the army, to sell plots of land, and I left in 75 and returned on June 10, 1982, with André Jordan.

Back then, the roads were much worse, there was more trash. How did Quinta do Lago become a kind of island of success? First, there was much less traffic. Second, there was less trash, less visual pollution. In other words, it was more rustic, so we sold rusticity, practically, authenticity, we were genuine. The road might not have been as good as it is now, but we didn't see as much trash, we didn't have as much traffic... We sold land on the back of a mule cart that passed by every day and went to what we now call Praia do Gigi. It was a couple with their black hats, the lady with her shawl, and a little dog sat under the cart. At sunset, the dog would come behind us because he lived in the shadow of the cart. This was what we sold, the very typical. We 'sold' cacti and cigarette holders. We didn't have money for landscaping or grass. We went to the riverbanks to pick cacti and cigarette holders, which we placed on the verges of what is now Avenida André Jordan, which at the time was Avenida Tejo. At seven in the morning, I would go with my samba school, as the guys called them, who were almost all colorful. We would go to the riverbanks to pick cacti, cigarette holders, and all that stuff, which was our landscaping.

In 1973/1974, Pónei opened, featuring figures like Paul McCartney. Yes, Paul McCartney was there, sitting with Cliff Richards and Linda McCartney, and since there wasn't a free table—I've never in my life asked someone to move just because someone more important than any of my clients arrived—they sat on the two steps next to the bar. He ordered a bottle of champagne. I didn't have any Dom Pérignon, so I asked Manuel da Silva, the restaurant manager, who found me a Dom Pérignon. We sold it, and everyone was happy. No one asked for an autograph, no one bothered me; those were different times.

How did the names Trigonometria and T-Clube come about? These days it seems easy to come up with a name for a place, but it's not. I didn't want foreign names, I didn't want names with my name, Trigo. One day we were having dinner at the Hermitage: me, Pedro Leitão, Frank Thomas, who was the owner of the Club of Clubs and that magazine Members, and Malu Fuster-Pereira, who was an assistant and worked with Pedro Leitão for a while. And I was thinking, what names should we use? And I met Frank Thomas through Regines's acquaintance, and I had brought him specifically to show him Quinta do Lago. During dinner, Frank Thomas suggested Trigonometria! And that's how it stayed. Then Pedro Leitão suggested that the other place should be called T-Clube.

How do you enter Brazilian nightlife, specifically at Regine's, where Manecas Moceleck was? Manecas was before me, and I replaced him, in quotation marks. It's not exactly replacing.

My first job was at Hippopotamus, in São Paulo, with Ricardo Amaral. However, I left.

But how did you get to Hippopotamus, if you'd only explored the Pony in Quinta do Lago with Anica Duarte Silva? Yes, but three or four months after André went to Brazil, I went too. Pedro Leitão, who was famous in Brazil, was already there, and one day he called me and said, "I have an invitation to a party in Guarujá, from the best decorator in São Paulo. 'If he likes your 'dolls,' you'll become a millionaire.' I had made some acrylic tables that I wanted to sell, and I'd told Pedro Leitão, 'Come with me to the party, because I'm not about to drive from Rio de Janeiro to Guarujá—it's 500 or 600 kilometers.' It's in what's known as Baixa de Santos. At the time, the cars were VW Beetles, not particularly comfortable. So we went, to a party I'd never seen in my life. I was from the Algarve; we have to position ourselves in the time and era. With all due respect, we were a little more evolved than many, but we were from the Algarve... It was a crazy party, the orchestra was playing on a rotating stage, I'd never seen anything like it, and suddenly André [Jordan] appears and says to me: 'Kid, what are you doing here?' 'And you, what are you doing here?' In the middle of this conversation, about what you do here, what you don't do here, Ricardo Amaral appears and turns to André and says: 'Oh Andrézinho, now that these Portuguese guys have come, can you find me a director for Hippopotamus?' André turned to me and said: 'Here it is, this one. You take this one, it's guaranteed.' And so it was, I became director of Hippopotamus, I even sold myself dearly and all, at the time, because I said I wanted to make my own furniture and, man, the guy opened his purse strings. He gave me a brand new car, a little penthouse with two small bedrooms, a living room, I don't know what, and a garden all around. A good salary for the time, and I was pretending I was still thinking about the factory, but of course I accepted.

Who frequented it? The cream of the crop. And it wasn't even big, it was the size of my dance floor at the Algarve T-Club, the size of my bar and restaurant. There were no gardens, nothing, the restaurant was even smaller. And in my conversation, I said to him, 'Ricardo, I'll stay, but if I do new projects, you give me 20% of my ideas.' 'Absolutely,' he replied in his Brazilian way, and I, in my Portuguese way, never asked to sign anything. Until a time came when Saturday Night Fever and all that stuff were all the rage, and we even had matinees with instructors to teach the ladies how to dance to Travolta and all that. 'And I said, 'Ricardo, you need to open a real nightclub.' While we were talking, a figure appeared claiming to be the owner or director of Iguatemi Shopping. "Hey, we have movie theaters there, the theaters aren't doing any good, why don't you guys build a nightclub there?" And I asked Ricardo to let me build the nightclub. The space had six to seven meters of ceiling height, a huge square... Manecas Moceleck had built a nightclub in Alvor, the Papagaio. I took the image of the parrot and said, "We have the Hippopotamus, let's build the Papagaio, and let's build a piano bar. Backgammon was all the rage back then. In São Paulo, people played for dollars, but seriously, there were women playing a million dollars at Beckgammon. It was crazy. So we built the Papagaio, in addition to the Hippopotamus, and we created a clothing label called Animals. I told Ricardo it was time to do the math on the 20%. Like a good Brazilian, Ricardo turned to me and said he didn't remember any of that. I said good afternoon, good evening, and handed over the keys. I'd rented a small house, with a ground floor and a first floor, with a garden, and people started coming over. Instead of getting stuck in traffic at seven in the evening, people stopped by and ordered whiskey, vodka, cashews, and so on. Since there was a supermarket next door owned by a Portuguese man who baked bread 24 hours a day, I found some trays with bread, cheese, sausages, and a few bottles of alcohol, and a jar where people could put whatever money they wanted.

But was that your house? It was my house, where I lived. Eventually, there were too many of them, and I started giving them the key to the house so they wouldn't bother me. It started to become a huge success, and it was Friends. I never gave it a name; it never had a name.

If the house had two floors, I guess he lived upstairs. That's where he lived, but since it had three bedrooms upstairs, I ended up staying in just one room. I decorated one of the rooms with black and white newspaper and some black and white pillows, and in another, I made some denim walls. People would hang out there to watch TV and drink, and I don't know what else. It was a huge success, to the point where BOPE showed up—it was the police, like the PIDE (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) back home. I had no idea why a mistress of the BOPE chief was frequenting the house, but everything turned out well because I knew him from Hippopotamus. Until one day, Manecas Moceleck called me. He was at Regine's in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador—there wasn't one in São Paulo yet. I didn't have much confidence in Manecas. I'd been to Stones once or twice and had some trouble getting in. I was from the Algarve, not a Lisbon native, and he didn't know me from anywhere, despite coming from families in São Brás. But I always found a friend who would take me to Stones, which was the best thing in Lisbon at the time. Meanwhile, April 25th happened, Manecas went to Paris, and Regine hired him for Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. Returning to Manecas's phone call, he told me that Regine's had called him and put me in charge of opening Regine's in São Paulo. He asked if I'd mind going to Rio de Janeiro, and I said yes. If they wanted to talk to me, they could come to São Paulo. We met up—Régine, Manecas, and Regine's husband, Roger Sucrué. We were at lunch when Regine got a call from Salvador, Bahia. They'd closed down the Régine in Salvador, Bahia, because the girl there, Alicia Galeza, had 'blocked' the juvenile court from entering the nightclub—the juvenile court in Brazil is worse than the tax authorities—they immediately shut the nightclub down. Who was the governor at the time? The great António Carlos Magalhães. I happened to know his daughter and managed to speak to her. We drove to Salvador, the governor welcomed us there, made a few calls, and then they said the nightclub would reopen, but the woman would have to be fired. Regine looked at me and said, "You're staying here," and without asking how much I'd earn, I stayed at the Meridien Hotel in Salvador, naked, bare. The next morning, I went to speak to the hotel manager, because it was a nightclub within the hotel. There I explained my situation, saying that I had to go to São Paulo to get clothes, and that I also had a bar in my house open. I had a girlfriend there who also ran the bar, and I ended up offering it to her, and I went to Salvador. I ate, drank, had my clothes washed, all for free, and the waiters sang, "It's a Portuguese house, for sure." I was left with a $5,000 salary, which was a huge amount of money, and living in the hotel for free.

What year was that? Late '76. Meanwhile, there was a problem in Rio, because a girl left Regine's and went to some friends' house and died of an overdose. They put her in a car, left her at Pedra da Gávea, and her body turned up the next day on one of the beaches. Every newspaper had front page headlines: 'Drugs at Regine's.' Manecas Moceleck told Regine he had to go to Barcelona for eye treatment and caught a plane. Since Manecas never showed up again, Regine called me, pissed off, and I explained that I didn't know anything. Regine told me that some Portuguese friends had told her that Manecas was going to open a nightclub in Lisbon, called Bananas. I didn't know anything. And that was the day she told me to leave Salvador and go to Rio de Janeiro, where I became the director of the entire operation. Meanwhile, because of the girl who died, Regine's was empty. Newspaper headlines talking about drugs didn't help much, although everyone knew there were only two types of customers: those who snorted and those who didn't. At that time, those who didn't snort didn't want to go there to avoid being confused, and those who snorted didn't want to be seen either [laughs]. So the place was empty, and I was the director. Only Salvador was saved, because it's like the Algarve, seasonal. Rio de Janeiro was a drama. Regine called me to Paris and gave me the message: 'Total silence, no marketing, zero. People have to forget us.' Regine was a very intelligent woman. 'Let's stay calm until they forget,' she told me.

But were they still open? Yes, practically empty. Anyway, things progressed slowly. Six months later, I went to Paris to see her and told her it was time. I told her I was going to find a public relations professional, Danusa Leão, Nara Leão's sister, a highly respected woman in society, who socialized with the cream of the crop at Jorginhos Guingles, all those Rio de Janeiro crowd. I suggested Regine throw a big ball at Canecão. She said I was crazy, but I explained that Regine's relaunch had to be there. I spoke to Mário Prioli, who owned Canecão, and we put together the Circo Fantástico. I hired Globo's set designer, Mário Monteiro, who was the most important. He was a hilarious guy. He wouldn't speak for two or three hours. The woman would stand next to him, light a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. He'd take a few drags, and she'd put it back in his mouth. She was a real character. Around four in the morning, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and designed the set for the Circo Fantástico show. So what was it? We'd cover the Canecão with zebra skin, put a cage in the middle of the Canecão. We'd have the orchestra at the back, and then a cage in the middle. This cage was tall. Imagine with a dressing room underneath. So what was the idea? Put some women dressed as panthers, others as giraffes. Animals. Circus animals. One of them was Roberta Close. That's when we met her and launched her. And it was a real success. Regine, with her connections, brought in Alain Delon, Omar Sharif, the cream of Hollywood. We'd host nights at Regine's and, at the same time, take them to Circo Fantástico. Plus, we had Paul Bocuse on the top floor. The Meridien Hotel was owned by Air France, so it was easy to get the stars on the Concorde and host them there. Paul Bocuse's restaurant was essentially a franchise. When we launched Circo Fantástico during Carnival, Regine invited a lot of people, but I don't remember their names. At the opening of Regine's in São Paulo, it was Omar Sharif, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, and Charles Aznavour, who sang with an orchestra. But Regine's in Rio de Janeiro's revival benefited from a proposal from Danuso, who started hosting parties on Sundays. "Since they don't have a waitress on Sundays, we'll put on a buffet and then have them dance." And so it was.

Who was Regine's clientele? People came from New York, Paris, and Italy. The Italians loved it because they could snort as much as they wanted—at any party, even outside of nightclubs, trays would be passed around. I've never tried it. I once 'took' a joint, and I was dizzy for a day, like I was incredibly hungry. I said, never again. As for coke, I'd go to parties in private apartments, and there would be guys at the door with trays, and I'd always say, 'I'm already high,' and I'd walk away like that.

Let's go back to Portugal. You opened the T-Club, but first you did Trigonometry, which was for the younger generation? Trigonometry was a success. From Francisco Balsemão onwards, everyone, everyone in the community entered Trigonometry. And everyone paid 500 escudos at the door. There was no VIP entrance, nothing. There was a roulette door; if my father wanted to get in, he had to go through the back door or pay the 500 escudos. Everyone paid, millionaire or not. With or without a Rolls-Royce at the door, in that first year, everyone paid. And I remember it was the Uvas family, it was that whole community, the PQP, their friends, all those people, who were even at Quinta da Baleia, more than at Quinta do Lago. These families all lived at Quinta da Balaia, which was the 'posh' place of the time. We, at Quinta do Lago, were practically incapable of selling lots. We were selling lots for six thousand contos, and no one was buying. They're now 300 thousand euros. Or less. Now they're selling for three million.

The T-Club's champagne party became a staple, and everyone wanted an invitation... Let's see. When I lived in Brazil for those eight years, I also met the Portuguese elite who returned to Portugal at the time. The Ricardo Salgados, the Tozé Reimão Nogueiras, all those guys... Pedro Leitão. The first T-Club décor was designed by Pedro Leitão. The architecture was mine, but the decor was Pedro Leitão's. But all those people who had gone to Brazil after the 25th of April 1974 revolution and returned knew about my experience in Brazil and all my success. So, opening with those clients as a guarantee, they guaranteed the others. Those big names, in essence, guaranteed T-Club's success. André Jordan, of course. Then it was also the golden age, let's say, of politics, of joining the European Community. The country blossomed.

At T-Club, I'd put people in the club in the front row, the second row, the third row... That was always our secret. There was Siberia and Oasis. It was a technique I'd come from Regine's. The floor manager would see someone, and sometimes they didn't know the people, but I knew them, more or less, and would say Siberia or Oasis. Siberia was in the more 'hidden' areas, Oasis was in the more visible area. I've never liked the word VIP in my life; I think it's become too commonplace, even worse. But even back then, I didn't like the word VIP, Very Important Person. A guy can be a weak character, with all due respect, and in fact, Regin taught me that, but you can be a very civilized guy. And worth more than a guy with a lot of money who's a detestable character. So that was the slogan. But we had an even bigger trick, one that people never realized. When you go to a nightclub and say, 'Hey, I went there today, I knew everyone,' it's impossible to know a thousand people. So, our trick was to bring together the Lisbon clubs, the Porto clubs, the Alentejo clubs. And then there were the others. So, when I walked into T-Clube in the Algarve, Francisco Balsemão and André Gonçalves Pereira's table was guaranteed, which was the second one at the entrance when you go to the Jardim. Those little tricks with the card on the table—it's reserved, it's reserved, it's reserved—were useful for managing the atmosphere of the club. You need to understand how a club is run. What are the kids these days? Excuse me, but do most club owners understand anything? They were former public relations professionals; they open a club, everything's fine, they have a bar, they have a bathroom, it's cool, let it go. Then they wonder if it lasts six, five, four, or three years. When you don't have a foundation, and you don't have the courage to hold a door, you don't last 25 or 30 years like a T-Club or a Stones. Then there are different phenomena like Kiss, which is on a street with thousands of tourists, whether they're in flip-flops or swimsuits, and has also survived for 35, 40 years. And hats off to my friend Liberto Mealha. When you create a Stones spirit, a T-Club spirit, you have to be very strict, and you have to be fearless. 'Hey, there's a guy over there who's going to spend 10,000 euros,' I'm not interested. That guy's going to destroy me a million, he's not going to beat the bullet. I'm not going to seat that guy next to Francisco Balsamão, for example. Because with a client like that, he'll never come here again, not even Tita. Therefore, I prefer to have the guys here spending a few 'peanuts' every month, as JJ says, than to have someone who is going to spend 10 thousand today.

He still hasn't explained the meaning of the champagne party. I wanted to have a summer party, where I would offer champagne, and I thought Sunday would be the best day. On a Sunday the house wasn't super crowded, and those who wanted to go to the champagne party spent money on Friday and Saturday, because they were going to spend the weekend or were already on vacation, some because they wanted to be seen, others because they hadn't received the invitation yet, they went there to spend the money. In other words, with the increase in my income from Friday and Saturday, and in the previous days, I paid for the champagne party on Sunday. On the other hand, I could even invite more people because most of them couldn't go because it was Sunday, as they worked on Monday in Lisbon or in another city. He put on a hell of a show-off, because instead of inviting 500 people, he invited a thousand, 500 showed up with their wives and the other 500 who couldn't come were all bloated because they had received the invitation to the champagne party.

It was criticized by some who said that it gave priority to the Portuguese and disregarded foreigners, not giving the house a more cosmopolitan feel. Never, never. But there is one thing I can say, at the time, foreigners were a minority, Quinta do Lago had half a dozen houses, and it was only later that it grew. On the other hand, when foreigners from Quinta do Lago arrived in July and August, they practically left. Furthermore, the British like to be in the majority, they don't like to be in the minority and as the T-Clube had a Portuguese majority, beautiful people, who imposed themselves physically, beautiful women, well dressed, everything branded, it was the cream of Portugal, that was the national team because it was the best in Lisbon, it was the best in Porto, it was the best in Beja, it was the best in Évora, it was the best in Guimarães, it was the best in Braga. I'm even going to say something barbaric, it was much better than T-Clube de Lisboa, because at Quinta do Lago it was the national team. In the Algarve there were Dutch, German, some Spanish, Belgian and English clients. I hired an English public relations person, I did everything I could. I had a little click there – but I was hit by the financial crisis of 2008 – when I created the sushi restaurant with Manota [Paula Amorim's current husband and responsible for the JNcQUO restaurants]. Then the foreigners appeared because the Portuguese didn't know what sushi was and didn't go.

What is the reason for selling T-Clube? In recent years we have fought against nightclubs that opened for a month and that deserted ours. Repair. I had a client who was going to the Algarve for 10 days, there were few days, but let's say 15 days. I didn't go out seven days a week. Mostly it came out three times. Of these three, they sometimes went to other clubs. They would come up to me and say: 'Zé Manel, I went to Bliss and that was a disgrace'. Do you know what he said to you? Well, I lost 33% of the market because the night you went there you didn't come here and I lost 33%. 33% of the market is my profit, now my profit has gone to waste and how do I pay the employees and the rest? Things have to be explained, it's just that people often don't understand why a guy calls people names. Luís Evaristo, with whom I made peace, one day turned to me and said he was going to open Casa do Castelo – it had been offered to me by the Union of Swiss Banks (UBS). But I went to visit the space, and I said: 'But how am I going to build a club here, with a half-curved staircase, some little rooms...' I said I had to tear down a lot of things, that didn't fit the bill. They said no, they wanted to increase the value of the land to sell. And Luís accepted and did well. Luís, in the first conversation he had with me, I'll never forget, at the fireplace at T-Clube, turned to me and said to me: 'I'm going to open all year round too, you're my guru and a hell of a guy' and I only got angry with him when he lied to me, because he held the opening party with my guest list – he bought it from someone – on a Saturday, and my champagne party was on a Sunday. That didn't go well for him in the first year, and at the end of the season he went there to introduce himself. We agreed to make a pact, I would bring forward my champagne party and he would have the opening party on a different weekend. I explained to him the reasons for holding the party on a Sunday, as it forced a lot of people to spend the weekend, so they would go to the nightclub on Friday and Saturday, spending money in hotels and restaurants, we all had something to gain from that. As the following year he opened the same weekend as the champagne party, I cut ties with him.

Why didn't you sell T-Clube to Paula Amorim's group, when the deal was almost closed? For a very simple reason, I had the deal closed, we did all the due diligence, social security, banks, everything that is done in due diligence. Business closed, we had to change the use of Trigonometria, which was a disco-bar for commerce, industry and services. The T-Cclube was unable to change to commerce, industry and services because there was a lack of 40 or 50 signatures, because the condominium owners all had to sign. Paula Amorim accepted, and told me that she wanted to create the JNcQUOI restaurant at T-Clube, and the Fashion Clinic at Trigonometria. Everything agreed, we met in Lisbon. Giant screen, you start reading the contract, everything was read and more than read, suddenly her lawyer says that there is a small problem, that Dr. Paula doesn't feel comfortable, because tomorrow or the next day she wants to change the JNcQUOI restaurant, perhaps to a store, and because of that we are going to take a value here. And I said, 'Oh Paula, sorry, we've been dealing with this for four or five months, everything was done, everything was sorted out, you agreed. I don't know what your question is, I even said that that's where I wanted to build the restaurant.' I grabbed the briefcase and walked out the door with my lawyer. Manota followed me to the elevator. I said to him: Manota, I'm sorry, I'm from the Algarve, but I'm not Arab. Everything was agreed, patience.

What happened next? Paulo China was always there 'snooping'. 'Zé Manel, you sell and you don't sell, and this and that', until he called me two or three days later and told me: 'We have to schedule a meeting there at the Church', which is the headquarters of one of the law firms. I took all the files, everything was up to date, they all arrived, including lawyers and financiers and Paulo China. They started by saying they were interested, asked how much it was and I explained what I had already explained to Paula Amorim. There are 3,600,000, everything is here. Their reaction was that they needed a month to study, to which I replied: If I'm illiterate, I'm not in finance, I'm not a lawyer, but I can see this folder in two hours, you can also see it because you are experts. It's all there, it's my whole life. They asked me for ten days, but we signed a confidentiality document, and for ten days I couldn't sell to anyone. We signed that and they left the meeting and went to sell it to Paula Amorim. Paula said, 'no, no, I'm going to buy it, I have everything arranged with José Manuel Trigo'. Manota then called me, to which I replied: 'For now, I can't talk to you, or anyone else, on October 21st, if they give up, I'll give you my word of honor, your wife may not know me but you know me, selling you for the same price, not one euro more, not one euro less. I have my word'. They even wanted to give me something else. On the 20th, the others send me an email confirming the purchase. We booked a deed in Portimão, and I sold it.

Did you sell it to a fund? No, I didn't sell it to a fund. There were three people linked to a law firm and Paulo China who had a small stake. I signed off after signing. I'm like that. The check was certified, I deposited it and the deal was closed.