The tropical flavours of South America can now be enjoyed at a Brazilian café and butcher's after two couples teamed up to make their dream a reality.

Customers can tuck into a variety of traditional pastries, savoury snacks, and shop a wide variety of meat cuts at Tropical Brazilian Centre in Windmill Street, Gravesend.

Rui Baltar explains the importance of an in-store coffee shop

It was founded by two couples from Brazil, with the dream of having a better life abroad.

Solange Oliveira was born in the countryside of São Paulo, and moved to the UK in 2006 to live with her aunt in London.

There she met her now-husband, Bruno da Silva, a butcher from Goiânia, whose dream was to open his own butcher's shop over here.

Together, they decided to team up with their two friends living in Gravesend, Rui Baltar from Portugal and wife Michele Baltar from Rio de Janeiro.

Solange explained how the couple helped get things going.

She said: "Rui and Michele were crucial to start everything. I’ve been friends with Michele since 2009 and lived with them in Gravesend for a while before moving to London.

"Rui’s dream has always been to build a café. So we decided to move homes, join forces, and build a business together in Gravesend.

"We chose this town because it has many Brazilians who choose not to live in London, so we knew we would have a good clientele.

"Within three weeks since we had the idea we managed to find a place and said our classic Brazilian expression: 'It’s in God’s hands'.

"We started off with not much money, without experience to command a business on our own, because we don’t have any staff apart from the four of us. Rui is our manager, I take care of admin bits and supply, Michele works at the till and Bruno takes over the butcher's."

Tropical has just celebrated its first month in business, which according to the four entrepreneurs has been a huge success, as they can get 100 customers a day.

The store's best-selling items include various beef cuts, cakes and a traditional Brazilian fried chicken dumpling, called Coxinha.

Rui stressed the importance of having a coffee shop inside their premises, as it is a way for customers to unwind and enjoy their shopping the Brazilian way.

He said: "We believe life outside these doors is very fast, everyone is running all the time. We want people to come in and sit, relax, listen to the music, enjoy the environment. And only after they need to worry about shopping, buying their meat. It gives people a sense of calmness."

Solange added how surprised they all were to see so many British customers coming through the door.

She said: "We have had a lot of customers over this first month, thank God. We’ve lost count of how many people we get here a day, let alone a week. I’d say we get around 100 people a day, sometimes.

"You’d expect to see mainly, if not only, Brazilian customers. But we actually get many English people coming in, wanting to see what the store’s about.

"We are so glad that our customers are loving our services, always complimenting us and giving good feedback.

"We didn’t expect to have all this success in just a month.

"Every day, we keep getting more and more customers.We are very happy and grateful."

"It's also nice to see that we have a British community as well and asking us 'what is this?' and wanting to know how to use our products."

Rui added: "It's really rewarding to see so many Brazilians coming here and embracing their culture, getting their own products and having a smile on their faces seeing things they haven't had in a long time, since they were little.

"It's also nice to see that we have a British community as well and asking us 'what is this?' and wanting to know how to use our products."