A friend calls Lisbon Europe’s most underrated capital when we tell him we’re off there for the weekend. There’s such a lot to love in its barrelly trams and bockety limestone block footpaths. The orange trees are laden with fruit under a warm winter sun and at the bottom of every ear-popping hill there seems to be a pastelaria selling fuel for the ascent in the shape of a flaky custard tart.
But we have failed to prepare on our short visit and failure is a dismal dinner in Honra, one of a chain of restaurants in Figueira Square “by” Portuguese celebrity chef, Olivier.
Sunday evening is our last chance to salvage some yums. So we head to Cantino do Avillez. José Avillez is Portugal's only two-star Michelin chef. Avillez hasn't so much rested on his laurels as carved them up and sprouted them into new ventures. He has five Lisbon restaurants, including Belcanto his two-star Michelin restaurant, and a sixth in Oporto.
Cantino means canteen and the restaurant is on a quiet steep street in the Chiado district of the city. The interior is as workaday as the name suggests, concrete floors, a wall of salvaged timber boards and factory lights. Tables are so close together we may as well be sharing ours with the French couple beside us. Tea lights are in glass yoghurt jars. It all says plain, down-home cooking, a place where a two star magician goes to pare it all back with a simpler (and cheaper) school of cooking.
The best mouthful of the night arrives in a doll-sized enamel mug. It’s a yoghurt-thick tomato, garlic and olive dip so delightfully right with crisped thin toasts that we could order a large bowl. There are gorgeous peanut-sized dark brown olives soaked in citrusy oil with shards of orange skin. They’re olives not so much marinated as marmaladed. The third delight is an almost melting disk of black truffle butter which turns the curtain-up bread part of the meal into a dazzling highlight.
Next a brilliant bowl of cheese, boiled pig’s head pared and then pressed into a terrine before being sliced and tossed with a sharp pickly sauce with capers, shredded egg, and finished with finely-sliced asparagus. God it’s good, a pig fest with the bits that normally get thrown out. And it’s €6. Another starter of veal trotters with chickpeas and lemon doesn’t hit the spot quite so resoundingly. The small cast-iron dish has the look of a stew that would turn to solid jelly if you let it go cold. A lot more lemon is needed to cut through the gelatinous gloop.
After such a brilliant start mains are less dazzling, not least because they’re three times the cost of the starters. There’s a set of plump, perfectly-fried scallops with slices of Alijezur sweet potato, roasted cherry tomatoes glistening with oil and more of that snap fresh green asparagus with shards of basil. The Alijezur sweet potato with its purplish skin and creamy yellow flesh is celebrated in its home region on the western coast of the Algarve with a sweet potato festival every year. They’re a model tuber not as fluffy and claggy as the orange-fleshed ones we know here.
There’s a reminder of the Michelin credentials in the “exploding olives” dropped gently onto the other main, a dish of flaked cod with crunchy bread croutons and fried cabbagy greens. It’s a little too salty. But the olives (olive purée turned into quiveringly thin beads and filled with olive oil) do their bursting on the tongue thing to great effect.
There are two desserts from different sides of the chef/cook divide, equally great and back in the bloody brilliant value category. There’s a gloriously simple orange and vanilla creme brûlée. Under a glass burnt sugar lid it tastes like a custard tart filling hit by a falling orange and rolling together down a hill. Then there’s the cheffier Avela3 or hazelnut three ways. It’s an ice cream, crowned with mousse and then sprinkled with a hazelnut praline.
Much like the Irish food scene in the shadow of London, Portuguese chefs have the behemoth that is Spanish cooking looming over their efforts. Cantinho do Avillez is an encouraging sign that they’re not letting the underdog role get to them. Instead they’re getting on with confident creative cooking with all the luscious ingredients this beautiful place produces.
Dinner for two with a bottle of wine, sparkling water and a madeira came to €106.75
THE VERDICT: 7.5/10
Portuguese classics with Michelin twist at mom and pop restaurant prices.
Cantinho do Avillez Rua Duques de Bragança 7, 1200-162 Lisboa, Portugal, tel: 351 21 199 2369
Facilities: Basic
Music: Bass-thumping pop
Food provenance: Limited. Those Alijezur sweet potatoes are the stars
Wheelchair access: Yes, but space is tight
Vegetarian options: Very limited
SECOND HELPING...
The Mercado da Ribeira opened near Lisbon's main train station last year and it's a magnet for lunching locals. It's similar to Madrid's Mercado de San Miguel, with mini restaurants from Lisbon's food scene arranged around the side. But it's slightly less touristy with a working fresh food market in the shed beside it. I chose the Henrique Sa Pessoa stall because it had the largest queue and got a luscious bowl of seabass tartare with mango for €8 and a €6 side of couscous with olives and a ricotta so light and fresh it almost floated on top.
Mercado da Ribeira, 50 Avenida 24 de Julho, Lisbon
