Carlos Silva opened Sangria's in downtown Attleboro a little more than a year ago and he said business is looking good.

"It was the right time and the right place," he said.

Silva began working as a bartender when he was 18, but he said his love of food and cooking started much earlier.

"My mom and my aunt were great cooks," he said. "A lot of our recipes come from them and things that I've done myself over the years."

Silva said having such great cooks around him was a blessing. Whenever he tried to make something new, he had a full force of qualified critics to offer their advice.

"I got appraisals when I made something because my mom was such a good cook," he said. "It was something I tried to shadow. My friends were always telling me I was spoiled because this is such good food and nothing like [they] grew up with."

Silva took an elective cooking class in high school and received a scholarship from his cooking entry. He said they had to give it to someone else because at the time he wasn't going into the field, but he said he always thought about it.

"It's something that I wanted to do for a long time," he said. "I wanted to do a kind of business even before. When I was in high school, I thought about becoming a chef." 

Silva said he likes trying new things in the kitchen.

"I would take recipes from something I would eat and try to recreate it," he said.

Silva said his favorite thing to do is to take a traditional recipe and mix it with something new. He said, for instance, there are Portuguese fried cod cakes. He said he adds a dipping sauce that changes the flavor of each cake depending on the eater's decision.

"I like to put twists on some foods, make them my own," he said.

Sangria's is located at 59 Park St. in Attleboro. It is open Monday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to "close," Friday and Saturday from 12 p.m. to 1 a.m. Go here to see the restaurant's website.